
Book_X4Z. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



EUROPE REVISED 




/Warn'' 



A TIP IS THE ONE FORM OF INSULT THAT ANYBODY IN EUROPE WILL TAKE 



EUROPE REVISED 



BY 



IRVIN S. COBB 



AUTHOR OF "BACK HOME," "THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM,' 

"ROUGHING IT DE LUXE," "COBB'S BILL OF FARE," 

"COBB'S ANATOMY," ETC. 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



C«J 



^ 






coptbight, 1913 and 1914 
Bt Tbb Ccbtis Pubushinq Coupaiit 



coptrioht, 1914 
Bt Geobge H. Dokan Comfamt 



OCT 27 1914 

*GU387220 ^\ 




TO 

MY SMALL DAUGHTER 

Who bade me shed a tear at 
the tomb of Napoleon, which I 
was very glad to do, because 
when I got there my feet 
certainly were hurting me. 



NOTE 

The picture on page 81 purporting to show 
the undersigned leaping head first into a Ger- 
man feather-bed does the undersigned a cruel 
injustice. He has a prettier figure than that — 
oh, oh, much prettier! 

The reader is earnestly entreated not to look 
at the picture on page 81. It is the only blot 
on the McCutcheon of this book. 
Respectfully, 

The Author. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. We Are Going Away from Here .... 19 

II. My Bonny Lies over the Ocean — and Lies 

AND Lies and Lies 38 

III. Bathing Oneself on the Other Side ... 57 

IV. Jacques; the Forsaken 76 

V. When the 7 a.m. Tut-Tut Leaves for Any- 
where 95 

VI. La Belle France Being the First Stop . . 101 

VII. Thence on and on to Verbotten-Land . . 116 

VIII. A Tale of a String Bean 138 

IX. The Deadly Pottlet Routine 161 

X. Modes of the Moment; a Fashion Article . 176 

XI. Dressed to Kill 196 

XII. Night Life — with the Life Part Missing . 218 

XIII. Our Friend — the Assassin 237 

XIV. That Gay Paresis 257 

XV. Symptoms of the Disease 278 

XVI. As Done in London 299 

XVII. Britain in Twenty Minutes 319 

XVIII. Guyed or Guided? 343 

XIX. Venice and the Venisons 362 

XX. The Combustible Captain op Vienna . . . 378 

XXI. Old Masters and Other Ruins .... 385 

XXII. Still More Ruins, Mostly Italian Ones . 406 

XXIII. Muckraking in Old Pompeii 421 

XXIV. Mine Own People 428 

XXV. Be It Ever So Humble 448 



[xi] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

A Tip is the One Form of Insult That Anybody in Europe 

Will Take Frontispiece 

I Tried to Remember All the Conflicting Advice That Had 

Been Offered to Me 23 

But the Deck Was Unpleasantly Congested With Great 

Burly Brutes 33 

But Oh, My Countrymen, What a Change From What Had 

Been! 47 

The Bathing Habit of Merrie England is a Venerable Myth 67 

I Had Heard that One Fell Headlong Into Its Smothering 

Folds 81 

Who Can Tell When the Same Fate May Strike Some 

Other Household! 87 

A German Cigar Keeps Off Any Disease Except the Cholera: 

It Gives you the Cholera 97 

All Ages and Sizes Gathered About That Small Boy and 

Gave Him Advice at the Top of Their Voices . . . 105 

The Sight of Women Doing the Bulk of the Hard and Dirty 

Farmwork Becomes Common 121 

The Most Ingenious and Wideawake of All the Earlier 

Rulers of Germany, King Verboten 129 

On the Nearer Bank Was a Village Populated by Short 

People and Long Dogs 143 



[xiii] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

According to the French Version of the Story of the Flood 

Only Two Animals Emerged from the Ark .... 153 

I Would That I Might Bring an Expedition of Europeans to 
America and Personally Conduct It Up and Down Our 
Continent and Back and Forth Crosswise of It . . . 167 

English Clothes are Not Meant for Americans .... 183 

He Did Not Look as Though He Were Alive .... 199 

Pheasant Shooting is the Last Word in the English Sporting 

Calendar 205 

Being Hunted With a Swivel Chair is What Makes the 

German Wild Boar Wild 211 

Berlin Abounds in Pleasure Palaces, So Called .... 223 

I Am Given to Understand That Vienna Night Life is the 

Wildest of All Night Life 231 

We Stayed Twenty Minutes, but It Must Have Been an 

Off-Night for Stabbings 243 

She'Had Not Done Anything to Earn a Tip That I Could 

See 263 

Try as Hard as You Please to See the Real Paris, the Paris 

of Small, Mean Graft Intrudes on You 269 

The Paris Which the Casual Male Visitor Samples is the 

Most Overrated Thing on Earth — and the Most Costly . 285 

In London, Mind You, the Newsboys Do Not Shout Their 

Extras 303 

And at a Given Hour Everybody Imbibes Tea Until Further 

Orders 309 

He would Write a Letter to The Times Complaining of the 
Growing Prevalence of Lions in the Public Thorough- 
.fares 327 

Feeding Hour in the Parrot Cage at the Zoo Never Produced 

Anything Like So Noisy and Animated a Scene . . 351 



[xiv] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

In Venice Even the Simple Gondolier Has a Secret Under- 
standing With All Branches of the Retail Trade . . 369 

Abroad We House Our Embassies Up Back Streets, Next 

Door to Bird and Animal Stores 381 

It Must Be Months Before Some of Them Quit Panting . 391 

If We Had These Catacombs in America We Should Make 

Them More Attractive for Picnic Parties .... 399 

All the Guides in Rome Follow a Regular Routine With 

the Tourist 413 

She is Not Going to Buy Anything — She is Merely Out 

Shopping 423 

I Did a Good^Deal of Reclining, Coming Back .... 433 

Nearer and Nearer Draws That Blessed Dark-Blue Strip . 455 



[xv] 



EUROPE REVISED 



CHAPTER I 
WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 



FOREWORD. — It has always seemed to 
me that the principal drawback about 
the average guidebook is that it is over- 
freighted with facts. Guidebooks here- 
tofore have made a specialty of facts — have 
abounded in them; facts to be found on every 
page and in every paragraph. Reading such a 
work, you imagine that the besotted author 
said to himself, "I will just naturally fill this 
thing chock-full of facts" — and then went and 
did so to the extent of a prolonged debauch. 

Now personally I would be the last one in 
the world to decry facts as such. In the ab- 
stract I have the highest opinion of them. But 
facts, as someone has said, are stubborn things ; 
and stubborn things, like stubborn people, are 
frequently tiresome. So it occurred to me that 
possibly there might be room for a guidebook 
on foreign travel which would not have a single 
indubitable fact concealed anywhere about its 
[19] 



EUROPE REVISED 



person. I have even dared to hope there might 
be an actual demand on the part of the general 
public for such a guidebook. I shall endeavor 
to meet that desire — if it exists. 

While we are on the subject I wish to say 
there is probably not a statement made by me 
here or hereafter which cannot readily be con- 
troverted. Communications from parties de- 
siring to controvert this or that assertion will 
be considered in the order received. The line 
forms on the left and parties will kindly avoid 
crowding. Triflers and professional contro- 
verters save stamps. 

With these few introductory remarks we now 
proceed to the first subject, which is The Sea: 
Its Habits and Peculiarities, and the Quaint 
Creatures Found upon Its Bosom. 

From the very start of this expedition to 
Europe I labored under a misapprehension. 
Everybody told me that as soon as I had got 
my sea legs I would begin to love the sea with 
a vast and passionate love. As a matter of fact 
I experienced no trouble whatever in getting 
my sea legs. They were my regular legs, the 
same ones I use on land. It was my sea stom- 
ach that caused all the bother. First I was 
afraid I should not get it, and that worried 
me no little. Then I got it and was regretful. 
However, that detail will come up later in a 
more suitable place. I am concerned now with 
the departure. 

[201 



WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 



Somewhere forward a bugle blares; some- 
where rearward a bell jangles. On the deck 
overhead is a scurry of feet. In the mysterious 
bowels of the ship a mighty mechanism opens 
its metal mouth and speaks out briskly. Later 
it will talk on steadily, with a measured and a 
regular voice; but now it is heard frequently, 
yet intermittently, like the click of a blind 
man's cane. Beneath your feet the ship, which 
has seemed until this moment as solid as a 
rock, stirs the least little bit, as though it had 
waked up. And now a shiver runs all through 
it and you are reminded of that passage from 
Pygmalion and Galatea where Pygmalion says 
with such feeling: 

She starts; she moves; she seems to feel 
The thrill of life along her keel. 

You are under way. You are finally com- 
mitted to the great adventure. The necessary 
good-bys have already been said. Those who 
in the goodness of their hearts came to see you 
off have departed for shore, leaving sundry 
suitable and unsuitable gifts behind. You have 
examined your stateroom, with its hot and 
cold decorations, its running stewardess, its all- 
night throb service, and its windows overlook- 
ing the Hudson — a stateroom that seemed so 
large and commodious until you put one small 
submissive steamer trunk and two scared 
valises in it. You are tired, and yon white bed, 
[211 



EUROPE REVISED 



with the high mudguards on it, looks mighty- 
good to you ; but you feel that you must go on 
deck to wave a fond farewell to the land you 
love and the friends you are leaving behind. 

You fight your way to the open through com- 
panionways full of frenzied persons who are 
apparently trying to travel in every direction at 
once. On the deck the illusion persists that it 
is the dock that is moving and the ship that is 
standing still. All about you your fellow passen- 
gers crowd the rails, waving and shouting mes- 
sages to the people on the dock; the people on 
the dock wave back and shout answers. About 
every other person is begging somebody to tell 
auntie to be sure to write. You gather that 
auntie will be expected to write weekly, if not 
oftener. 

As the slice of dark water between boat and 
dock widens, those who are left behind begin 
running toward the pierhead in such numbers 
that each wide, bright-lit door-opening in turn 
suggests a flittering section of a moving-picture 
film. The only perfectly calm person in sight 
is a gorgeous, gold-laced creature standing on 
the outermost gunwale of the dock, wearing the 
kind of uniform that a rear admiral of the Swiss 
navy would wear — if the Swiss had any navy — 
and holding a speaking trumpet in his hand. 
This person is not excited, for he sends thirty- 
odd-thousand-ton ships off to Europe at frequent 
intervals, and so he is impressively and im- 
portantly blase about it; but everybody else is 




I TRIED TO REMEMBER ALL THE CONFLICTING ADVICE 
THAT HAD BEEN OFFERED TO ME 



WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 

excited. You find yourself rather that way. 
You wave at persons you know and then at 
persons you do not know. 

You continue to wave until the man alongside 
you, who has spent years of his life learning to 
imitate a siren whistle with his face, suddenly 
twines his hands about his mouth and lets go a 
terrific blast right in your ear. Something 
seems to warn you that you are not going to 
care for this man. 

The pier, ceasing to be a long, outstretched 
finger, seems to fold back into itself, knuckle- 
fashion, and presently is but a part of the oddly 
foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by 
the black dot of watchers clustered under a bat- 
tery of lights, like a swarm of hiving bees. Out 
in midstream the tugs, which have been con- 
voying the ship, let go of her and scuttle off, one 
in this direction and one in that, like a brace of 
teal ducks getting out of a walrus' way. 

Almost imperceptibly her nose straightens 
down the river and soon on the starboard quar- 
ter — how quickly one picks up these nautical 
terms! — looming through the harbor mists, you 
behold the statue of Miss Liberty, in her popular 
specialty of enlightening the world. So you go 
below and turn in. Anyway, that is what I did; 
for certain of the larger ships of the Cunard line 
sail at midnight or even later, and this was such 
a ship. 

For some hours I lay awake, while above me 
and below me and all about me the boat settled 
[25] 



EUROPE REVISED 



down to her ordained ship's job, and began 
drawing the long, soothing snores that for five 
days and nights she was to continue drawing 
without cessation. There were so many things 
to think over. I tried to remember all the 
authoritative and conflicting advice that had 
been offered to me by traveled friends and well- 
wishers. 

Let's see, now: On shipboard I was to wear 
only light clothes, because nobody ever caught 
cold at sea. I was to wear the heaviest clothes 
I had, because the landlubber always caught 
cold at sea. I was to tip only those who served 
me. I was to tip all hands in moderation, 
whether they served me or not. If I felt squeam- 
ish I was to do the following things : Eat some- 
thing. Quit eating. Drink something. Quit 
drinking. Stay on deck. Go below and lie 
perfectly flat. Seek company. Avoid same. 
Give it up. Keep it down. 

There was but one point on which all of them 
were agreed. On no account should I miss 
Naples; I must see Naples if I did not see an- 
other solitary thing in Europe. Well, I did 
both — I saw Naples; and now I should not miss 
Naples if I never saw it again, and I do not think 
I shall. As regards the other suggestions these 
friends of mine gave me, I learned in time that 
all of them were right and all of them were 
wrong. 

For example, there was the matter of a correct 
traveling costume. Between seasons on the At- 
f 26 1 



WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 

lantic one wears what best pleases one. One 
sees at the same tnne women in furs and summer 
boys in white ducks. Tweed-enshrouded Eng- 
lishmen and linen-clad American girls promen- 
ade together, giving to the decks that pleasing 
air of variety and individuality of apparel only 
to be found in southern California during the 
winter, and in those orthodox pictures in the 
book of Robinson Crusoe, where Robinson is 
depicted as completely wrapped up in goatskins, 
while Man Friday is pirouetting round as nude 
as a raw oyster and both of them are perfectly 
comfortable. I used to wonder how Robinson 
and Friday did it. Since taking an ocean trip 
I understand perfectly. I could do it myself 
now. 

There certainly were a lot of things to think 
over. I do not recall now exactly the moment 
when I ceased thinking them over. A blank 
that was measurable by hours ensued. I woke 
from a dream about a scrambled egg, in which 
I was the egg, to find that morning had arrived 
and the ship was behaving naughtily. 

Here was a ship almost as long as Main Street 
is back home, and six stories high, with an Eng- 
lish basement; with restaurants and elevators 
and retail stores in her; and she was as broad 
as a courthouse ; and while lying at the dock she 
had appeared to be about the most solid and 
dependable thing in creation — and yet in just 
a few hours' time she had altered her whole 
nature, and was rolling and sliding and charging 
[27 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



and snorting like a warhorse. It was astonishing 
in the extreme, and you would not have ex- 
pected it of her. 

Even as I focused my mind on this phenom- 
enon the doorway was stealthily entered by a 
small man in a uniform that made him look 
something like an Eton schoolboy and some- 
thing like a waiter in a dairy lunch. I was about 
to have the first illuminating experience with 
an English manservant. This was my bedroom 
steward, by name Lubly — ^William Lubly. My 
hat is off to William Lubly — to him and to all 
his kind. He was always on duty; he never 
seemed to sleep ; he was always in a good humor, 
and he always thought of the very thing you 
wanted just a moment or two before you thought 
of it yourself, and came a-running and fetched 
it to you. Now he was softly stealing in to close 
my port. As he screwed the round, brass-faced 
window fast he glanced my way and caught my 
apprehensive eye. 

"Good morning, sir," he said, and said it in 
such a way as to convey a subtle compliment. 

"Is it getting rough outside .f*" I said — I knew 
about the inside. 

"Thank you," he said; "the sea 'as got up a 
bit, sir — thank you, sir." 

I was gratified — nay more, I Was flattered. 
And it was so delicately done too. I really did 
not have the heart to tell him that I was not 
solely responsible — that I had, so to speak, col- 
laborators; but Lubly stood ready always to 
[28] 



WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 

accord me a proper amount of recognition for 
everything that happened on that ship. Only 
the next day, I think it was, I asked him where 
we were. This occurred on deck. He had just 
answered a lady who wanted to know whether 
we should have good weather on the day we 
landed at Fishguard and whether we should get 
in on time. Without a moment's hesitation he 
told her; and then he turned to me with the air 
of giving credit where credit is due, and said: 

"Thank you, sir — ^we are just off the Banks, 
thank you." 

Lubly ran true to form. The British serving 
classes are ever like that, whether met with at 
sea or on their native soil. They are a great and 
a noble institution. Give an English servant a 
kind word and he thanks you. Give him a harsh 
word and he still thanks you. Ask a question 
of a London policeman — he tells you fully and 
then he thanks you. Go into an English shop 
and buy something — the clerk who serves you 
thanks yoii with enthusiasm. Go in and fail to 
buy something — he still thanks you, but with- 
out the enthusiasm. 

One kind of Englishman says Thank you, sir; 
and one kind — the Cockney who has been edu- 
cated — says Thenks; but the majority brief it 
into a short but expressive expletive and merely 
say: Kew. Kew is the commonest word in the 
British Isles. Stroidinary runs it a close second, 
but Kew comes first. You hear it everywhere. 
Hence Kew Gardens; they are named for it. 
[29] 



EUROPE REVISED 



All the types that travel on a big English-owned 
ship were on ours. I take it that there is a re- 
quirement in the maritime regulations to the 
effect that the set must be complete before a 
ship may put to sea. To begin with, there was 
a member of a British legation from somewhere 
going home on leave, for a holiday, or a funeral. 
At least I heard it was a holiday, but I should 
have said he was going home for the other oc- 
casion. He wore an Honorable attached to the 
front of his name and carried several extra 
initials behind in the rumble; and he was filled 
up with that true British reserve which a cer- 
tain sort of Britisher always develops while 
traveling in foreign lands. He was upward of 
seven feet tall, as the crow flies, and very thin 
and rigid. 

Viewing him, you got the impression that his 
framework all ran straight up and down, like 
the wires in a bird cage, with barely enough 
perches extending across from side to side to 
keep him from caving in and crushing the cana- 
ries to death. On second thought I judge I had 
better make this comparison in the singular 
number — there would not have been room in 
him for more than one canary. 

Every morning for an hour, and again every 
afternoon for an hour, he marched solemnly round 
and round the promenade deck, always alone 
and always with his mournful gaze fixed on the 
far horizon. As I said before, however, he stood 
very high in the air, and it may have been he 
[30 1 



WE A[RE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 

feared, if he ever did look down at his feet, he 
should turn dizzy and be seized with an uncon- 
trollable desire to leap off and end all; so I am 
not blaming him for that. 

He would walk his hour out to the sixtieth 
second of the sixtieth minute and then he would 
sit in his steamer chair, as silent as a glacier and 
as inaccessible as one. If it were afternoon he 
would have his tea at five o'clock and then, with 
his soul still full of cracked ice, he would go below 
and dress for dinner; but he never spoke to 
anyone. His steamer chair was right-hand chair 
to mine and often we practically touched elbows ; 
but he did not see me once. 

I had a terrible thought. Suppose now, I 
said to myself — just suppose that this ship were 
to sink and only we two were saved ; and suppose 
we were cast away on a desert island and spent 
years and years there, never knowing each 
other's name and never mingling together so- 
cially until the rescue ship came along— and not 
even then unless there was some mutual ac- 
quaintance aboard her to introduce us properly ! 
It was indeed a frightful thought! It made 
me shudder. 

Among our company was a younger son going 
home after a tour of the Colonies — Canada and 
Australia, and all that sort of bally rot. I be- 
lieve there is always at least one younger son 
on every well-conducted English boat; the fam- 
ily keeps him on a remittance and seems to feel 
easier in its mind when he is traveling. The 
[31] 



EUROPE REVISED 



British statesman who said the sun never sets 
on British possessions spoke the truth, but the 
reporters in committing his memorable utterance 
to paper spelt the keyword wrong — undoubtedly 
he meant the other kind — the younger kind. 

This particular example of the species was in 
every way up to grade and sample. A happy 
combination of open air, open pores and open 
casegoods gave to his face the exact color of a 
slice of rare roast beef; it also had the expression 
of one. With a dab of English mustard in the 
lobe of one ear and a savory bit of watercress 
stuck in his hair for a garnish, he could have 
passed anywhere for a slice of cold roast beef. 

He was reasonably exclusive too. Not until 
the day we landed did he and the Honorable 
member of the legation learn — quite by chance 
— that they were third cousins — or something 
of that sort — to one another. And so, after the 
relationship had been thoroughly established 
through the kindly offices of a third party, they 
fraternized to the extent of riding up to London 
on the same boat-train, merely using different 
compartments of different carriages. The Eng- 
lish aristocrat is a tolerably social animal when 
traveling; but, at the same time, he does not 
carry his sociability to an excess. He shows 
restraint. 

Also, we had with us the elderly gentleman 
of impaired disposition, who had crossed thirty 
times before and was now completing his thirty- 
first trip, and getting madder and madder about 
[32] 



,//;«v./ .. IX 




BUT THE DECK WAS TJNPLEASANTLT CONGESTED 
WITH GREAT BUKLT BRUTES 



WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 

it every minute. I saw him only with his clothes 
on; but I should say, speaking offhand, that he 
had at least fourteen rattles and a button. His 
poison sacs hung 'way down. Others may have 
taken them for dewlaps, but I knew better; they 
were poison sacs. 

It was quite apparent that he abhorred the 
very idea of having to cross to Europe on the 
same ocean with the rest of us, let alone on the 
same ship. And for persons who were taking 
their first trip abroad his contempt was abso- 
lutely unutterable; he choked at the bare men- 
tion of such a criminal's name and offense. 
You would hear him communing with himself 
and a Scotch and soda. 

"Bah!" he would say bitterly, addressing the 
soda-bottle. "These idiots who've never been 
anywhere talking about this being rough weather ! 
Rough weather, mind you! Bah! People 
shouldn't be allowed to go to sea until they 
know something about it. Bah!" 

By the fourth day out his gums were as blue 
as indigo, and he was so swelled up with his 
own venom he looked dropsical. I judged his 
bite would have caused death in from twelve 
to fourteen minutes, preceded by coma and 
convulsive rigors. We called him old Colonel 
Gila Monster or Judge Stinging Lizard, for short. 

There was the spry and conversational gentle- 
man who looked like an Englishman, but was of 
the type commonly denominated in our own land 
as breezy. So he could not have been an Eng- 
[35 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



lishman. Once in a while there comes along an 
Englishman who is windy, and frequently you 
meet one who is drafty; but there was never a 
breezy Englishman yet. 

With that interest in other people's business 
which the close communion of a ship so promptly 
breeds in most of us, we fell to wondering who 
and what he might be; but the minute the sus- 
pect came into the salon for dinner the first 
night out I read his secret at a glance. He 
belonged to a refined song-and-dance team doing 
sketches in vaudeville. He could not have been 
anything else — he had jet buttons on his evening 
clothes. 

There was the young woman — she had elocu- 
tionary talents, it turned out afterward, and 
had graduated with honors from a school of 
expression — who assisted in getting up the ship's 
concert and then took part in it, both of those 
acts being mistakes on her part, as it proved. 

And there was the official he-beauty of the 
ship. He was without a wrinkle in his clothes 
— or his mind either; and he managed to maneu- 
ver so that when he sat in the smoking room he 
always faced a mirror. That was company 
enough for him. He never grew lonely or bored 
then. Only one night he discovered something 
wrong about one of his eyebrows. He gave a 
pained start; and then, oblivious of those of us 
who hovered about enjoying the spectacle, he 
spent a long time working with the blemish. 
The eyebrow was stubborn, though, and he just 
[36] 



WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM HERE 

couldn't make it behave; so he grew petulant 
and fretful, and finally went away to bed in a 
huff. Had it not been for fear of stopping his 
watch, I am sure he would have slapped him- 
self on the wrist. 

This fair youth was one of the delights of the 
voyage. One felt that if he had merely a pair 
of tweezers and a mustache comb and a hand 
glass he would never, never be at a loss for a 
solution of the problem that worries so many 
writers for the farm journals — a way to spend 
the long winter evenings pleasantly. 



[37] 



CHAPTER II 

MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN— 
AND LIES AND LIES AND LIES 



OF course, we had a bridal couple and 
a troupe of professional deep-sea fish- 
ermen aboard. We just naturally 
had to have them. Without them, I 
doubt whether the ship could have sailed. The 
bridal couple were from somewhere in the cen- 
tral part of Ohio and they were taking their 
honeymoon tour; but, if I were a bridal couple 
from the central part of Ohio and had never 
been to sea before, as was the case in this par- 
ticular instance, I should take my honeymoon 
ashore and keep it there. I most certainly 
should! This couple of ours came aboard bill- 
ing and cooing to beat the lovebirds. They 
made it plain to all that they had just been 
married and were proud of it. Their baggage 
was brand-new, and the groom's shoes were 
shiny with that pristine shininess which, once 
destroyed, can never be restored; and the bride 
wore her going-and-giving-away outfit. 
[38] 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

Just prior to sailing and on the morning after 
they were all over the ship. Everywhere you 
went you seemed to meet them and they were 
always wrestling. You entered a quiet side 
passage — there they were, exchanging a kiss — 
one of the long-drawn, deep-siphoned, sirupy 
kind. You stepped into the writing room 
thinking to find it deserted, and at sight of you 
they broke grips and sprang apart, eyeing you 
like a pair of startled fawns surprised by the 
cruel huntsman in a forest glade. At all other 
times, though, they had eyes but for each other. 

A day came, however — and it was the second 
day out — when they were among the missing. 
For two days and two nights, while the good 
ship floundered on the tempestuous bosom of 
the overwrought ocean, they were gone from 
human ken. On the afternoon of the third day, 
the sea being calmer now, but still suflBciently 
rough to satisfy the most exacting, a few hardy 
and convalescent souls sat in a shawl-wrapped 
row on the lee side of the ship. 

There came two stewards, bearing with them 
pillows and blankets and rugs. These articles 
were disposed to advantage in two steamer 
chairs. Then the stewards hurried away; but 
presently they reappeared, dragging the limp 
and dangling forms of the bridal couple from 
the central part of Ohio. But oh, my country- 
men, what a spectacle! And what a change 
from what had been ! 

The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though 
[39 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



worn for a period of time by one suddenly and 
sorely stricken in the midst of health. The 
bride's once well-coifed hair hung in lank dis- 
array about a face that was the color of prime 
old sage cheese — yellow, with a fleck of green 
here and there — and in her wan and rolling eye 
was the hunted look of one who hears something 
unpleasant stirring a long way off and fears it 
is coming this way. 

Side by side the stewards stretched them 
prone on their chairs and tucked them in. Her 
face was turned from him. For some time both 
of them lay there without visible signs of life — 
just two muffled, misery-stricken heaps. Then, 
slowly and languidly, the youth stretched forth 
an arm from his wrappings and fingered the 
swaddling folds that enveloped the form of his 
beloved. 

It may have been he thought it was about 
time to begin picking the coverlid, or it may 
have been the promptings of reawakened ro- 
mance, once more feebly astir within his bosom. 
At any rate, gently and softly, his hand fell on 
the rug about where her shoulder ought to be. 
She still had life enough left in her to shake it 
off — and she did. Hurt, he waited a moment, 
then caressed her again. " Stop that ! " she cried 
in a low but venomous tone. "Don't you dare 
touch me!" 

So he touched her no more, but only lay 
there mute and motionless; and from his look 
one might plumb the sorrows of his soul and 
[40] 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

know how shocked he was, and how grieved and 
heartstricken ! Love's young dream was o'er! 
He had thought she loved him, but now he 
knew better. Their marriage had been a terrible 
mistake and he would give her back her freedom; 
he would give it back to her as soon as he was able 
to sit up. Thus one interpreted his expression. 

On the day we landed, however, they were 
seen again. We were nosing northward through 
a dimpled duckpond of a sea, with the Welsh 
coast on one side and Ireland just over the way. 
People who had not been seen during the voyage 
came up to breathe, wearing the air of persons 
who had just returned from the valley of the 
shadow and were mighty glad to be back; and 
with those others came our bridal couple. 

I inadvertently stumbled on them in an ob- 
scure companionway. Their cheeks again wore 
the bloom of youth and health, and they were 
in a tight clinch; it was indeed a pretty sight. 
Love had returned on roseate pinions and the 
honeymoon had been resumed at the point 
where postponed on account of bad weather. 

They had not been seasick, though. I heard 
them say so. They had been indisposed, possi- 
bly from something they had eaten; but they 
had not been seasick. Well, I had my own 
periods of indisposition going over; and if it 
had been seasickness I should not hesitate a 
moment about coming right out and saying so. 
In these matters I believe in being absolutely 
frank and aboveboard. For the life of me I can- 
[411 



EUROPE REVISED 



not understand why people will dissemble and lie 
about this thing of being seasick. To me their 
attitude is a source of constant wonderment. 

On land the average person is reasonably 
proud of having been sick — after he begins to 
get better. It gives him something to talk 
about. The pale and interesting invalid invari- 
ably commands respect ashore. In my own 
list of acquaintances I number several persons 
— mainly widowed ladies with satisfactory in- 
comes — who never feel well unless they are ill. 
In the old days they would have had resort to 
patent medicines and the family lot at Laurel 
Grove Cemetery; but now they go in for rest 
cures and sea voyages, and the baths at Carlsbad 
and specialists, these same being main contrib- 
uting causes to the present high cost of living, 
and also helping to explain what becomes of 
some of those large life-insurance policies you 
read about. Possibly you know the type I am 
describing— the lady who, when planning where 
she will spend the summer, sends for catalogues 
from all the leading sanatoriums. We had one 
such person with us. 

She had been surgically remodeled so many 
times that she dated everything from her last 
operation. At least six times in her life she had 
been down with something that was absolutely 
incurable, and she was now going to Homburg 
to have one of the newest and most fatal Ger- 
man diseases in its native haunts, where it would 
be at its best. She herself said that she was but 
[42] 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

a mere shell; and for the first few meals she ate 
like one — like a large, empty shell with plenty 
of curves inside it. 

However, when, after a subsequent period of 
seclusion, she emerged from her stateroom wear- 
ing the same disheveled look that Jonah must 
have worn when he and the whale parted com- 
pany, do you think she would confess she had 
been seasick? Not by any means ! She said she 
had had a raging headache. But she could not 
fool me. She had the stateroom next to mine 
and I had heard what I had heard. She was 
from near Boston and she had the near-Boston 
accent; and she was the only person I ever met 
who was seasick with the broad A. 

Personally I abhor those evasions, which de- 
ceive no one. If I had been seasick I should not 
deny it here or elsewhere. For a time I thought 
I was seasick. I know now I was wrong — but I 
thought so. There was something about the 
sardels served at lunch — their look or their smell 
or something — which seemed to make them dis- 
tasteful to me; and I excused myself from the 
company at the table and went up and out into 
the open air. But the deck was unpleasantly 
congested with great burly brutes — beefy, car- 
nivorous, overfed creatures, gorged with victuals 
and smoking disgustingly strong black cigars, 
and grinning in an annoying and meaning sort 
of way every time they passed a body who 
preferred to lie quiet. 

The rail was also moving up and down in a 
[43] 



EUROPE REVISED 



manner that was annoying and wearisome for 
the eye to watch — first tipping up and up and up 
until half the sky was hidden, then dipping down 
and down and down until the gray and heaving 
sea seemed ready to leap over the side and 
engulf us. So I decided to go below and jot 
down a few notes. On arriving at my quarters 
I changed my mind again. I decided to let the 
notes wait a while and turn in. 

It is my usual custom when turning in to 
remove the left shoe as well as the right one 
and to put on my pajamas; but the pajamas 
were hanging on a hook away over on the oppo- 
site side of the stateroom, which had suddenly 
grown large and wide and full of great distances; 
and besides, I thought it was just as well to 
have the left shoe where I could put my hand 
on it when I needed it again. So I retired 
practically just as I was and endeavored, as per 
the admonitions of certain friends, to lie perfectly 
flat. No doubt this thing of lying flat is all 
very well for some people — but suppose a fellow 
has not that kind of a figure? 

Nevertheless, I tried. I lay as flat as I could, 
but the indisposition persisted; in fact, it in- 
creased materially. The manner in which my 
pajamas, limp and pendent from that hook, 
swayed and swung back and forth became ex- 
tremely distasteful to me; and if by mental 
treatment I could have removed them from 
there I should assuredly have done so. But 
that was impossible. 

[44 1 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

Along toward evening I began to think of 
food. I thought of it not from its gastronomic 
aspect, but rather in the capacity of ballast. 
I did not so much desire the taste of it as the 
feel of it. So I summoned Lubly — he, at least, 
did not smile at me in that patronizing, signifi- 
cant way — and ordered a dinner that included 
nearly everything on the dinner card except 
Lubly 's thumb. The dinner was brought to me 
in relays and I ate it — ate it all! This step I 
know now was ill-advised. It is true that for a 
short time I felt as I imagine a python in a zoo 
feels when he is full of guinea-pigs — sort of 
gorged, you know, and sluggish, and only toler- 
ably uncomfortable. 

Then ensued the frightful denouement. It 
ensued almost without warning. At the time 
I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I 
would have sworn to it. If somebody had put 
a Bible on my chest and held it there I would 
cheerfully have laid my right hand on it and 
taken a solemn oath that I was seasick. Indeed, 
I believed I was so seasick that I feared — 
hoped, rather — I might never recover from it. 
All I desired at the moment was to get it over 
with as quickly and as neatly as possible. 

As in the case of drowning persons, there 
passed in review before my eyes several of the 
more recent events of my past life — meals 
mostly. I shall, however, pass hastily over 
these distressing details, merely stating in paren- 
theses, so to speak, that I did not remember 
[45 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



those string-beans at all. I was positive then, 
and am yet, that I had not eaten string-beans 
for nearly a week. But enough of this! 

I was sure I was seasick; and I am convinced 
any inexperienced bystander, had there been 
one there, would have been misled by my 
demeanor into regarding me as a seasick person 
— ^but it was a wrong diagnosis. The steward 
told me so himself when he called the next 
morning. He came and found me stretched 
prone on the bed of affliction; and he asked me 
how I felt, to which I replied with a low and 
hollow groan — tolerably low and exceedingly 
hollow. It could not have been any hoUower 
if I had been a megaphone. 

So he looked me over and told me that I had 
climate fever. We were passing through the 
Gulf Stream, where the water was warmer than 
elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and I had a 
touch of climate fever. It was a very common 
complaint in that latitude; many persons suffered 
from it. The symptoms were akin to seasick- 
ness, it was true; yet the two maladies were in 
no way to be confused. As soon as we passed 
out of the Gulf Stream he felt sure I would be 
perfectly well. Meantime he would recommend 
that I get Lubly to take the rest of my things 
off and then remain perfectly quiet. He was 
right about it too. 

Regardless of what one may think oneself, 
one is bound to accept the statement of an 
authority on this subject; and if a steward on a 
[46 1 




BUT OH, MT COUNTRYMEN, WHAT A CHANGE FROM WHAT HAD BEEn! 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

big liner, who has traveled back and forth 
across the ocean for years, is not an authority 
on climate fever, who is? I looked at it in that 
light. And sure enough, when we had passed 
out of the Gulf Stream and the sea had smoothed 
itself out, I made a speedy and satisfactory re- 
covery; but if it had been seasickness I 
should have confessed it in a minute. I have 
no patience with those who quibble and equiv- 
ocate in regard to their having been seasick. 

I had one relapse — a short one, but painful. 
In an incautious moment, when I wist not wot 
I wotted, I accepted an invitation from the chief 
engineer to go below. We went below — miles 
and miles, I think — to where, standing on metal 
runways that were hot to the foot, overalled 
Scots ministered to the heart and the lungs and 
the bowels of that ship. Electricity spat crack- 
lingly in our faces, and at our sides steel shafts 
as big as the pillars of a temple spun in coatings 
of spumy grease; and through the double skin 
of her we could hear, over our heads, a mighty 
Niagaralike churning as the slew-footed screws 
kicked us forward twenty-odd knots an hour. 
Someone raised the cover of a vat, and peering 
down into the opening we saw a small, vicious 
engine hard at work, entirely enveloped in 
twisty, coily, stewy depths of black oil, like a 
devil-fish writhing in sea-ooze and cuttle-juice. 

So then we descended another mile or two 
to an inferno, full of naked, sooty devils forever 
feeding sulphurous pitfires in the nethermost 
[49] 



EUROPE REVISED 



parlors of the damned; but they said this was 
the stokehole; and I was in no condition to 
argue with them, for I had suddenly begun to 
realize that I was far from being a well person. 
As one peering through a glass darkly, I saw 
one of the attendant demons sluice his blistered 
bare breast with cold water, so that the sweat 
and grime ran from him in streams like ink; 
and peering in at a furnace door I saw a great 
angry sore of coals all scabbed and crusted over. 
Then another demon, wielding a nine-foot bar 
daintily as a surgeon wields a scalpel, reached in 
and stabbed it in the center, so that the fire 
burst through and gushed up red and rich, like 
blood from a wound newly lanced. 

I had seen enough and to spare; but my 
guide brought me back by way of the steerage, 
in order that I might know how the other half 
lives. There was nothing here, either of smell 
or sight, to upset the human stomach — third 
class is better fed and better quartered now on 
those big ships than first class was in those 
good old early days — but I had held in as long 
as I could and now I relapsed. I relapsed in 
a vigorous manner — a whole-souled, boisterous 
manner. People halfway up the deck heard me 
relapsing, and I will warrant some of them 
were fooled too — they thought I was seasick. 

It was due to my attack of climate fever that 

I missed the most exciting thing which happened 

on the voyage. I refer to the incident of the 

professional gamblers and the youth from Jersey 

\50] 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

City. From the very first there was one passen- 
ger who had been picked out by all the knowing 
passengers as a professional gambler; for he 
was the very spit-and-image of a professional 
gambler as we have learned to know him in 
story books. Did he not dress in plain black, 
without any jewelry? He certainly did. Did 
he not have those long, slender, flexible fingers .f* 
Such was, indeed, the correct description of 
those fingers. Was not his eye a keen steely- 
blue eye that seemed to have the power of 
looking right through you.^^ Steely-blue was 
the right word, all right. Well, then, what 
more could you ask? 

Behind his back sinister yet fascinating rumors 
circulated. He was the brilliant but unscrupu- 
lous scion of a haughty house in England. He 
had taken a first degree at Oxford, over there, 
and the third one at police headquarters, over 
here. Women siinply could not resist him. 
Let him make up his mind to win a woman and 
she was a gone gosling. His picture was to be 
found in rogues' galleries and ladies' lockets. 
And sh-h-h! Listen! Everybody knew he was 
the identical crook who, disguised in woman's 
clothes, escaped in the last lifeboat that left the 
sinking Titanic. Who said so? Why — er — 
everybody said so! 

It came as a grievous disappointment to all 

when we found out the truth, which was that 

he was the booking agent for a lyceum bureau, 

going abroad to sign up some foreign talent for 

[511 



EUROPE REVISED 



next season's Chautauquas; and the only gam- 
bling he had ever done was on the chance of 
whether the Tyrolian Yodelers would draw 
better than our esteemed secretary of state — or 
vice versa. 

Meantime the real professionals had establish- 
ed themselves cozily and comfortably aboard, 
had rigged the trap and cheese-baited it, and 
were waiting for the coming of one of the class 
that is born so numerously in this country. If 
you should be traveling this year on one of the 
large trans-Atlantic ships, and there should 
come aboard two young well-dressed men and 
shortly afterward a middle-aged well-dressed 
man with a flat nose, who was apparently a 
stranger to the first two; and if on the second 
night out in the smoking room, while the pool 
on the next day's run was being auctioned, one 
of the younger men, whom we will call Mr. Y, 
should appear to be slightly under the influence 
of malt, vinous or spirituous liquors— or all three 
of them at once — and should, without seeming 
provocation, insist on picking a quarrel with the 
middle-aged stranger, whom we will call Mr. 
Z; and if further along in the voyage Mr. Z 
should introduce himself to you and suggest a 
little game of auction bridge for small stakes 
in order to while away the tedium of travel; 
and if it should so fall out that Mr. Y and his 
friend Mr. X chanced to be the only available 
candidates for a foursome at this fascinating 
pursuit; and if Mr. Z, being still hostile toward 
[52] 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

the sobered and repentant Mr. Y, should decline 
to take on either Mr. Y or his friend X as 
a partner, but chose you instead; and if on the 
second or third deal you picked up your cards 
and found you had an apparently unbeatable 
hand and should bid accordingly; and Mr. X 
should double you; and Mr. Z, sitting across 
from you should come gallantly right back and 
redouble it; and Mr. Y, catching the spirit of 
the moment, should double again — and so on and 
so forth until each point, instead of being worth 
only a paltry cent or two, had accumulated a 
value of a good many cents — if all these things 
or most of them should befall in the order 
enumerated — why, then, if I were you, gentle 
reader, I would have a care. And I should leave 
that game and go somewhere else to have it too 
— lest a worse thing befall you as it befell the 
guileless young Jerseyman on our ship. 

After he had paid out a considerable sum on 
being beaten — by just one card — upon the play- 
ing of his seemingly unbeatable hand and after 
the haunting and elusive odor of eau de rodent 
had become plainly perceptible all over the ship, 
he began, as the saying goes, to smell a rat 
himself, and straightway declined to make good 
his remaining losses, amounting to quite a tidy 
amount. Following this there were high words, 
meaning by that low ones, and accusations and 
recriminations, and at eventide when the sunset 
was a welter of purple and gold, there was a 
sudden smashing of glassware in the smoking 
[53] 



EUROPE REVISED 



room and a flurry of arms and legs in a far 
corner, and a couple of pained stewards scurry- 
ing about saying, "Ow, now, don't do that, sir, 
if you please, sir, thank you, sir!" And one of 
the belligerents came forth from the melee 
wearing a lavender eye with saffron trimmings, 
as though to match the sunset, and the other 
with a set of skinned knuckles, emblematic of 
the skinning operations previously undertaken. 
And through all the ship ran the hissing tongues 
of scandal and gossip. 

Out of wild rumor and cross-rumor, certain 
salient facts were eventually precipitated like 
sediment from a clouded solution. It seemed 
that the engaging Messrs. X, Y and Z had been 
induced, practically under false pretenses to 
book passage, they having read in the public 
prints that the prodigal and card-foolish son of 
a cheese-paring millionaire father meant to 
take the ship too; but he had grievously disap- 
pointed them by not coming aboard at all. 
Then, when in an effort to make their traveling 
expenses back, they uncorked their newest 
trick and device for inspiring confidence in 
gudgeons, the particular gudgeon of their choos- 
ing had refused to pay up. Naturally they were 
fretful and peevish in the extreme. It spoiled 
the whole trip for them. 

Except for this one small affair it was, on the 

whole, a pleasant voyage. We had only one 

storm and one ship's concert, and at the 

finish most of us were strong enough to have 

[54] 



MY BONNY LIES OVER THE OCEAN 

stood another storm. And the trip had been 
worth a lot to us — at least it had been worth a 
lot to me, for I had crossed the ocean on one 
of the biggest hotels afloat. I had amassed 
quite a lot of nautical terms that would come 
in very handy for stunning the folks at home 
when I got back. I had had my first thrill at 
the sight of foreign shores. And just by casual 
contact with members of the British aristocracy, 
I had acquired such a heavy load of true British 
hauteur that in parting on the landing dock I 
merely bowed distantly toward those of my fel- 
low Americans to whom I had not been intro- 
duced; and they, having contracted the same 
disease, bowed back in the same haughty and 
distant manner. 

When some of us met again, however, in 
Vienna, the insulation had been entirely rubbed 
off and we rushed madly into one another's 
arms and exchanged names and addresses; and, 
babbling feverishly the while, we told one an- 
other what our favorite flower was, and our birth- 
stone and our grandmother's maiden name, and 
what we thought of a race of people who re- 
garded a cup of ostensible coffee and a dab of 
honey as constituting a man's-size breakfast. 
And, being pretty tolerably homesick by that 
time, we leaned in toward a common center and 
gave three loud, vehement cheers for the land 
of the country sausage and the home of the buck- 
wheat cake — and, as giants refreshed, went on 
our ways rejoicing. 

[55] 



EUROPE REVISED 



That, though, was to come later. At present 
we are concerned with the trip over and what 
we had severally learned from it. I personally 
had learned, among other things, that the Atlan- 
tic Ocean, considered as such, is a considerably 
overrated body. Having been across it, even 
on so big and fine and well-ordered a ship as 
this ship was, the ocean, it seemed to me, was 
not at all what it had been cracked up to be. 

During the first day out it is a novelty and after 
that a monotony — except when it is rough ; and 
then it is a doggoned nuisance. Poets without 
end have written of the sea, but I take it they 
stayed at home to do their writing. They were 
not on the bounding billow when they praised 
it; if they had been they might have decorated 
the billow, but they would never have praised it. 

As the old song so happily put it: My Bonny 
Lies Over the Ocean! And a lot of others have 
lied over it too; but I will not — at least not 
just yet. Perhaps later on I may feel moved 
to do so; but at this moment I am but newly 
landed from it and my heart is full of rankling 
resentment toward the ocean and all its works. 

I speak but a sober conviction when I say 
that the chief advantage to be derived from 
taking an ocean voyage is not that you took it, 
but that you have it to talk about afterward. 
And, to my mind, the most inspiring sight to be 
witnessed on a trip across the Atlantic is th-e Bat- 
tery — viewed from the ocean side, coming back. 

Do I hear any seconds to that motion? 
[56 1 



CHAPTER III 

BATHING ONESELF ON THE OTHER 
SIDE 



MY first experience with the bath- 
ing habits of the native Aryan stocks 
of Europe came to pass on the morn- 
ing after the night of our arrival in 
London. 

London disappointed me in one regard — 
when I opened my eyes that morning there was 
no fog. There was not the sKghtest sign of a 
fog. I had expected that my room would be 
full of fog of about the consistency of Scotch 
stage dialect — soupy, you know, and thick and 
bewildering. I had expected that servants with 
lighted tapers in their hands would be groping 
their way through corridors like caves, and that 
from the street without would come the hoarse- 
voiced cries of cabmen lost in the enshrouding 
gray. You remember Dickens always had them 
hoarse-voiced. 

This was what I confidently expected. Such, 
however, was not to be. I woke to a conscious- 
[57 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



ness that the place was flooded with indubitable 
and undoubted sunshine. To be sure, it was 
not the sharp, hard sunshine we have in America, 
which scours and bleaches all it touches, until 
the whole world has the look of having just been 
clear-starched and hot-ironed. It was a soft- 
ened, smoke-edged, pastel-shaded sunshine; 
nevertheless it was plainly recognizable as the 
genuine article. 

Nor was your London shadow the sharply 
outlined companion in black who accompanies 
you when the weather is fine in America. Your 
shadow in London was rather a dim and wavery 
gentleman who caught up with you as you 
turned out of the shaded by-street; who went 
with you a distance and then shyly vanished, 
but was good company while he stayed, being 
restful, as your well-bred Englishman nearly 
always is, and not overly aggressive. 

There was no fog that first morning, or the 
next morning, or any morning of the twenty- 
odd we spent in England. Often the weather 
was cloudy, and occasionally it was rainy; and 
then London would be drenched in that won- 
derful gray color which makes it, scenically 
speaking, one of the most fascinating spots on 
earth; but it was never downright foggy and 
never downright cold. English friends used to 
speak to me about it. They apologized for 
good weather at that season of the year, just 
as natives of a Florida winter resort will apolo- 
gize for bad. 

[58] 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

"You know, old dear," they would say, "this 
is most unusual — most stroidinary, in fact. It 
ought to be raw and nasty and foggy at this 
time of the year, and here the cursed weather 
is perfectly fine — blast it!" You could tell they 
were grieved about it, and disappointed too. 
Anything that is not regular upsets Englishmen 
frightfully. Maybe that is why they enforce 
their laws so rigidly and obey them so beauti- 
fully. 

Anyway I woke to find the fog absent, and I 
rose and prepared to take my customary cold 
bath. I am much given to taking a cold bath 
in the morning and speaking of it afterward. 
People who take a cold bath every day always 
like to brag about it, whether they take it or not. 

The bathroom adjoined the bedroom, but did 
not directly connect with it, being reached by 
means of a small semi-private hallway. It was 
a fine, noble bathroom, white tiled and spotless ; 
and one side of it was occupied by the longest, 
narrowest bathtub I ever saw. Apparently Eng- 
lish bathtubs are constructed on the principle 
that every Englishman who bathes is nine 
feet long and about eighteen inches wide, 
whereas the approximate contrary is frequently 
the case. Draped over a chair was the biggest, 
widest, softest bathtowel ever made. Shem, 
Ham and Japhet could have dried themselves 
on that bathtowel, and there would still have 
been enough dry territory left for some of the 
animals — not the large, woolly animals like the 
[59 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



Siberian yak, but the small, slick, porous ani- 
mals such as the armadillo and the Mexican 
hairless dog. 

So I wedged myself into the tub and had a 
snug-fitting but most luxurious bath; and when 
I got back to my room the maid had arrived 
with the shaving water. There was a knock at 
the door, and when I opened it there stood a 
maid with a lukewarm pint of water in a long- 
waisted, thin-lipped pewter pitcher. There was 
plenty of hot water to be had in the bathroom, 
with faucets and sinks all handy and convenient, 
and a person might shave himself there in abso- 
lute comfort; but long before the days of pipes 
and taps an Englishman got his shaving water 
in a pewter ewer, and he still gets it so. It is 
one of the things guaranteed him under Magna 
Charta and he demands it as a right; but I, 
being but a benighted foreigner, left mine in 
the pitcher, and that evening the maid checked 
me up. 

"You didn't use the shaving water I brought 
you to-day, sir!" she said. "It was still in the 
jug when I came in to tidy up, sir." 

Her tone was grieved; so, after that, to spare 
her feelings, I used to pour it down the sink. 
But if I were doing the trip over again I would 
drink it for breakfast instead of the coffee the 
waiter brought me — the shaving water being 
warmish and containing, so far as I could tell, 
no deleterious substances. And if the bathroom 
were occupied at the time I would shave myself 
[60] 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

with the coffee. I judge it might work up into 
a thick and durable lather. It is certainly not 
adapted for drinking purposes. 

The English, as a race, excel at making tea 
and at drinking it after it is made; but among 
them coffee is still a mysterious and murky 
compound full of strange by-products. By first 
weakening it and wearing it down with warm 
milk one may imbibe it; but it is not to be 
reckoned among the pleasures of life. It is a 
solemn and a painful duty. 

On the second morning I was splashing in my 
tub, gratifying that amphibious instinct which 
has come down to us from the dim evolutionary 
time when we were paleozoic polliwogs, when I 
made the discovery that there were no towels 
in the bathroom. I glanced about keenly, seek- 
ing for help and guidance in such an emergency. 
Set in the wall directly above the rim of the tub 
was a brass plate containing two pushbuttons. 
One button, the uppermost one, was labeled 
Waiter — the other was labeled Maid. 

This was disconcerting. Even in so short a 
stay under the roof of an English hotel I had 
learned that at this hour the waiter would be 
hastening from room to room, ministering to 
Englishmen engaged in gumming their vital 
organs into an impenetrable mass with the 
national dish of marmalade; and that the maid 
would also be busy carrying shaving water to 
people who did not need it. Besides, of all the 
classes I distinctly do not require when I am 
[61] 



EUROPE REVISED 



bathing, one is waiters and the other is maids. 

For some minutes I considered the situation, 
without making any headway toward a suitable 
sohition of it; meantime I was getting chilled. 
So I dried myself — sketchily — with a tooth- 
brush and the edge of the window-shade; then I 
dressed, and in a still somewhat moist state I 
went down to interview the management about 
it. I first visited the information desk and told 
the youth in charge there I wished to converse 
with some one in authority on the subject of 
towels. After gazing at me a spell in a puzzled 
manner he directed me to go across the lobby 
to the cashier's department. Here I found a 
gentleman of truly regal aspect. His tie was a 
perfect dream of a tie, and he wore a frock coat 
so slim and long and black it made him look as 
though he were climbing out of a smokestack. 
Presenting the case as though it were a supposi- 
titious one purely, I said to him: 

"Presuming now that one of your guests is 
in a bathtub and finds he has forgotten to lay 
in any towels beforehand — such a thing might 
possibly occur, you know — how does he go 
about summoning the man-servant or the valet 
with a view to getting some?" 

"Oh, sir," he replied, "that's very simple. 
You noticed two pushbuttons in your bathroom, 
didn't you?" 

"I did," I said, "and that's just the difficulty. 
One of them is for the maid and the other is 
for the waiter." 

[62] 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

"Quite so, sir," he said, "quite so. Very 
well, then, sir: You ring for the waiter or the 
maid — or, if you should charnce to be in a 
hurry, for both of them; because, you see, one 
of them might charnce to be en " 

"One moment," I said. "Let me make my 
position clear in this matter : This Lady Susan- 
na — I do not know her last name, but you will 
doubtless recall the person I mean, because I 
saw several pictures of her yesterday in your 
national art gallery — this Lady Susanna may 
have enjoyed taking a bath with a lot of snoopy 
old elders lurking round in the background; but 
I am not so constituted. I was raised differently 
from that. With me, bathing has ever been a 
solitary pleasure. This may denote selfishness 
on my part; but such is my nature and I cannot 
alter it. All my folks feel about it as I do. We 
are a very peculiar family that way. When 
bathing we do not invite an audience. Nor do I 
want one. A crowd would only embarrass me. 
I merely desire a little privacy and, here and 
there, a towel." 

"Ah, yes! Quite so, sir," he said; "but you 
do not understand me. As I said before, you 
ring for the waiter or the maid. When one of 
them comes you tell them to send you the man- 
servant on your floor; and when he comes you 
tell him you require towels, and he goes to the 
linen cupboard and gets them and fetches them 
to you, sir. It's very simple, sir." 

"But why," I persisted, "why do this thing 
[63] 



EUROPE REVISED 



by a relay system? I don't want any famishing 
gentleman in this place to go practically un- 
marmaladed at breakfast because I am using 
the waiter to conduct preliminary negotiations 
with a third party in regard to a bathtowel." 

"But it is so very simple, sir," he repeated 
patiently. "You ring for the waiter or the 
ma—" 

I checked him with a gesture. I felt that I 
knew what he meant to say ; I also felt that if any 
word of mine might serve to put this establish- 
ment on an easy-running basis they could have 
it and welcome. 

"Listen!" I said. "You will kindly pardon 
the ignorance of a poor, red, partly damp Ameri- 
can who has shed his eagle feathers but still has 
his native curiosity with him! Why not put a 
third button in that bathroom labeled Man- 
servant or Valet or Towel Boy, or something 
of that general nature? And then when a 
sufferer wanted towels, and wanted 'em quick, 
he could get them without blocking the wheels 
of progress and industry. We may still be 
shooting Mohawk Indians and the American 
bison in the streets of Buffalo, New York; and 
we may still be saying: 'By Geehosaphat, I 
swan to calculate!' — anyway, I note that we 
still say that in all your leading comic papers; 
but when a man in my land goes a-toweling, he 
goes a-toweling — and that is all there is to it, 
positively! In our secret lodges it may happen 
that the worshipful master calls the august 
[64] 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

swordbearer to him and bids him communicate 
with the grand outer guardian and see whether 
the candidate is suitably attired for admission; 
but in ordinary Kfe we cut out the middleman 
wherever possible. Do you get my drift?" 

"Oh, yes, sir," he said; "but I fear you do 
not understand me. As I told you, it's very 
simple — so very simple, sir. We've never found 
it necessary to make a change. You ring for 
the waiter or for the maid, and you tell them 
to tell the manservant " 

"All right," I said, breaking in. I could see 
that his arguments were of the circular variety 
that always came back to the starting point. 
"But, as a favor to me, would you kindly ask 
the proprietor to request the head cook to 
communicate with the carriage starter and have 
him inform the waiter that when in future I 
ring the bathroom bell in a given manner — to 
wit: one long, determined ring followed by 
three short, passionate rings — it may be re- 
garded as a signal for towels?" 

So saying, I turned on my heel and went 
away, for I could tell he was getting ready to 
begin all over again. Later on I found out for 
myself that, in this particular hotel, when you 
ring for the waiter or the maid the bell sounds 
in the service room, where those functionaries 
are supposed to be stationed; but when you 
ring for the manservant a small arm-shaped de- 
vice like a semaphore drops down over your 
outer door. But what has the manservant done 
[65] 



EUROPE REVISED 



that he should be thus discriminated against? 
Why should he not have a bell of his own? So 
far as I might judge, the poor fellow has few 
enough pleasures in life as it is. Why should 
he battle with the intricacies of a block-signal 
system when everybody else round the place 
has a separate bell? And why all this mystery 
and mummery over so simple and elemental a 
thing as a towel? 

To my mind, it merely helps to prove that 
among the English the art of bathing is still in 
its infancy. The English claim to have dis- 
covered the human bath and they resent mildly 
the assumption that any other nation should 
become addicted to it; whereas I argue that the 
burden of the proof shows we do more bath- 
ing to the square inch of surface than the Eng- 
lish ever did. At least, we have superior accom- 
modations for it. 

The day is gone in this country when Saturday 
night was the big night for indoor aquatic 
sports and pastimes; and no gentleman as was 
a gentleman would call on his ladylove and 
break up her plans for the great weekly cere- 
mony. There may have been a time in certain 
rural districts when the bathing season for 
males practically ended on September fifteenth, 
owing to the water in the horsepond becoming 
chilled; but that time has passed. Along with 
every modern house that is built to-day, in coun- 
try or town, we expect bathrooms and plenty 
of them. With us the presence of a few bath- 
[66 1 




THE BATHING HABIT OF MERRIE ENGLAND IS A VENERABLE MTTH 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

tubs more or less creates no great amount of 
excitement — nor does the mere sight of open 
plumbing particularly stir our people; whereas 
in England a hotelkeeper who has bathrooms 
on the premises advertises the fact on his 
stationery. 

If in addition to a few bathrooms a Con- 
tinental hotelkeeper has a decrepit elevator he 
makes more noise over it than we do over a 
Pompeian palmroom or an Etruscan roof garden; 
he hangs a sign above his front door testifying 
to his magnificent enterprise in this regard. The 
Continental may be a born hotelkeeper, as has 
been frequently claimed for him; but the trouble 
is he usually has no hotel to keep. It is as though 
you set an interior decorator to run a livery 
stable and expected him to make it attractive. 
He may have the talents, but he is lacking in 
the raw material. 

It was in a London apartment house, out 
Maida Vale way, that I first beheld the official 
bathtub of an English family establishment. 
It was one of those bathtubs that flourished in 
our own land at about the time of the Green- 
back craze — a coffin-shaped, boxed-in affair 
lined with zinc; and the zinc was suffering from 
tetter or other serious skin trouble and was peel- 
ing badly. There was a current superstition 
about the place to the effect that the bathroom 
and the water supply might on occasion be 
heated with a device known in the vernacular 
as a geezer. 

[69] 



EUROPE REVISED 



The geezer was a sheet-iron contraption in 
the shape of a pocket inkstand, and it stood on 
a perch in the corner, like a Russian icon, with 
a small blue flame flickering beneath it. It 
looked as though its sire might have been a 
snare-drum and its dam a dark lantern, and 
that it got its looks from its father and its heat- 
ing powers from the mother's side of the family. 
And the plumbing fixtures were of the type that 
passed out of general use on the American side 
of the water with the Rutherford B. Hayes ad- 
ministration. I was given to understand that 
this was a fair sample of the average residential 
London bathroom — though the newer apart- 
ment houses that are going up have better ones, 
they told me. 

In English country houses the dearth of bath- 
ing appliances must be even more dearthful. I 
ran through the columns of the leading English 
fashion journal and read the descriptions of the 
large country places that were there offered 
for sale or lease. In many instances the ad- 
vertisements were accompanied by photographic 
reproductions in half tone showing magnificent 
old places, with Queen Anne fronts and Tudor 
towers and Elizabethan entails and Georgian 
mortgages, and what not. 

Seeing these views I could conjure up visions 
of rooks cawing in the elms; of young curates 
in flat hats imbibing tea on green lawns; of 
housekeepers named Meadows or Fleming, in 
rustling black silk; of old Giles — fifty years, 
[70 1 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

man and boy, on the place — wearing a smock 
frock and leaning on a pitchfork, with a wisp 
of hay caught in the tines, lamenting that the 
'All 'asn't been the same, zur, since the yovmg 
marster was killed ridin' to 'ounds; and then 
pensively wiping his eyes on a stray strand of 
the hay. 

With no great stretch of the imagination I 
could picture a gouty, morose old lord with a 
secret sorrow and a brandy breath; I could 
picture a profligate heir going deeper and deeper 
in debt, but refusing to the bitter end to put 
the ax to the roots of the ancestral oaks. I 
could imagine these parties readily, because I 
had frequently read about both of them in the 
standard English novels; and I had seen them 
depicted in all the orthodox English dramas 
I ever patronized. But I did not notice in the 
appended descriptions any extended notice of 
heating arrangements; most of the advertise- 
ments seemed to slur over that point altogether. 

And, as rega^rds bathing facilities in their re- 
lation to the capacities of these country places, 
I quote at random from the figures given: 
Eighteen rooms and one bath; sixteen rooms 
and two baths; fourteen rooms and one bath; 
twenty-one rooms and two baths; eleven rooms 
and one bath; thirty-four rooms and two baths. 
Remember that by rooms bedrooms were meant ; 
the reception rooms and parlors and dining halls 
and offices, and the like, were listed separately. 

I asked a well-informed Englishman how he 
[71] 



EUROPE REVISED 



could reconcile this discrepancy between bed- 
rooms and bathrooms with the current belief 
that the English had a practical monopoly of 
the habit of bathing. After considering the 
proposition at some length he said I should 
understand there was a difference in England 
between taking a bath and taking a tub — that, 
though an Englishman might not be particularly 
addicted to a bath, he must have his tub every 
morning. But I submit that the facts prove 
this explanation to have been but a feeble 
subterfuge. 

Let us, for an especially conspicuous example, 
take the house that has thirty-four sleeping 
chambers and only two baths. Let us imagine 
the house to be full of guests, with every bed- 
room occupied; and, if it is possible to do so 
without blushing, let us further imagine a couple 
of pink-and-white English gentlemen in the two 
baths. If preferable, members of the opposite 
sex may imagine two ladies. Very well, then; 
this leaves the occupants of thirty-two bedrooms 
all to be provided with large tin tubs at approxi- 
mately the same hour of the morning. Where 
would any household muster the crews to man 
all those portable tin tubs? And where would 
the proprietor keep his battery of thirty-two 
tubs when they were not in use.^* Not in the 
family picture gallery, surely! 

From my readings of works of fiction describ- 
ing the daily life of the English upper classes I 
know full well that the picture gallery is lined 
[72 1 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

with family portraits; that each canvased coun- 
tenance there shows the haughtily aquiline but 
slightly catarrhal nose, which is a heritage of 
this house; that each pair of dark and brooding 
eyes hide in their depths the shadow of that 
dread Nemesis which, through all the fateful 
centuries, has dogged this brave but ill-starred 
race until now, alas! the place must be let, fur- 
nished, to some beastly creature in trade, such 
as an American millionaire. 

Here at this end we have the founder of the 
line, dubbed a knight on the gory field of Hast- 
ings; and there at that end we have the present 
heir, a knighted dub. We know they cannot 
put the tubs in the family picture gallery; there 
is no room. They need an armory for that 
outfit, and no armory is specified in the ad- 
vertisement. 

So I, for one, must decline to be misled or 
deceived by specious generalities. If you are 
asking me my opinion I shall simply say that 
the bathing habit of Merrie England is a vener- 
able myth, and likewise so is the fresh-air fetish. 
The error an Englishman makes is that he mis- 
takes cold air for fresh air. 

In cold weather an Englishman arranges a 
few splintered jackstraws, kindling fashion, in 
an open grate somewhat resembling in size and 
shape a wallpocket for bedroom slippers. On 
this substructure he gently deposits one or 
more carboniferous nodules the size of a pigeon 
egg, and touches a match to the whole. In the 
[73] 



EUROPE REVISED 



more fortunate instances the result is a small, 
reddish ember smoking intermittently. He 
stands by and feeds the glow with a dessert- 
spoonful of fuel administered at half-hour in- 
tervals, and imagines he really has a fire and 
that he is really being warmed. 

Why the English insist on speaking of coal 
in the plural when they use it only in the singu- 
lar is more than I can understand. Conceded 
that we overheat our houses and our railroad 
trains and our hotel lobbies in America, never- 
theless we do heat them. In winter their in- 
teriors are warmer and less damp than the outer 
air — ^which is more than can be said for the 
lands across the sea, where you have to go out- 
doors to thaw. 

If there are any outdoor sleeping porches in 
England I missed them when I was there; but 
as regards the ventilation of an English hotel 
I may speak with authority, having patronized 
one. To begin with, the windows have heavy 
shades. Back of these in turn are folding blinds; 
then long, close curtains of muslin; then, finally, 
thick, manifolding, shrouding draperies of some 
airproof woolen stufi^. At nighttime the maid 
enters your room, seals the windows, pulls down 
the shades, locks the shutters, closes the cur- 
tains, draws the draperies — and then, I think, 
calks all the cracks with oakum. When the 
occupant of that chamber retires to rest he is 
as hermetic as old Rameses the First, safe in 
his tomb, ever dared to hope to be. That red- 
[74 1 



BATHING ON THE OTHER SIDE 

dish aspect of the face noted in connection with 
the average Enghshman is not due to fresh air, 
as has been popularly supposed; it is due to 
the lack of it. It is caused by congestion. For 
years he has been going along, trying to breathe 
without having the necessary ingredients at 
hand. 

At that, England excels the rest of Europe 
in fresh air, just as it excels it in the matter 
of bathing facilities. There is some fresh air 
left in England — an abundant supply in warm 
weather, and a stray bit here and there in cold. 
On the Continent there is none to speak of. 



[75]] 



CHAPTER IV 
JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



IN Germany the last fresh air was used dur- 
ing the Thirty Years' War, and there has 
since been no demand for any. Austria 
has no fresh air at all — never did have 
any, and therefore has never felt the need of 
having any. Italy — the northern part of it any- 
how — is also reasonably shy of this commodity. 
In the German-speaking countries all street 
cars and all railway trains sail with battened 
hatches. In their palmiest days the Jimmy 
Hope gang could not have opened a window in 
a German sleeping car — not without blasting; 
and trying to open a window in the ordinary 
first or second class carriage provides healthful 
exercise for an American tourist, while affording 
a cheap and simple form of amusement for his 
fellow passengers. If, by superhuman efforts 
and at the cost of a fingernail or two, he should 
get one open, somebody else in the compartment 
as a matter of principle, immediately objects; 
[76] 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



and the retired brigadier-general, who is always 
in charge of a German train, comes and seals it 
up again, for that is the rule and the law; and 
then the natives are satisfied and sit in sweet 
content together, breathing a line of second- 
handed air that would choke a salamander. 

Once, a good many years ago — in the century 
before the last I think it was — a member of the 
Teutonic racial stock was accidentally caught out 
in the fresh air and some of it got into his lungs. 
And, being a strange and a foreign influence to 
which the lungs were unused, it sickened him; 
in fact I am not sure but that it killed him on 
the spot. So the emperors of Germany and 
Austria got together and issued a joint ukase on 
the subject and, so far as the traveling public 
was concerned, forever abolished those danger- 
ous experiments. Over there they think a draft 
is deadly, and I presume it is if you have never 
tampered with one. They have a saying: A 
little window is a dangerous thing. 

As with fresh air on the Continent, so also 
with baths — except perhaps more so. In defer- 
ence to the strange and unaccountable desires 
of their English-speaking guests the larger hotels 
in Paris are abundantly equipped with bathrooms 
now, but the Parisian boulevardiers continue to 
look with darkling suspicion on a party who will 
deliberately immerse his person in cold water; 
their beings seem to recoil in horror from the 
bare prospect of such a thing. It is plainly to 
be seen they think his intelligence has been 
[77] 



EUROPE REVISED 



attainted by cold water externally applied; they 
fear that through a complete undermining of 
his reason he may next be committing these acts 
of violence on innocent bystanders rather than 
on himself, as in the present distressing stages 
of his mania. Especially, I would say, is this 
the attitude of the habitue of Montmartre. 

I can offer no visual proof to back my word; 
but by other testimony I venture the assertion 
that when a boulevardier feels the need of a 
bath he hangs a musk bag round his neck — and 
then, as the saying is, the warmer the sweeter. 
His companion of the gentler sex apparently has 
the same idea of performing daily ablutions that 
a tabby cat has. You recall the tabby-cat sys- 
tem, do you not? — two swipes over the brow 
with the moistened paw, one forward swipe over 
each ear, a kind of circular rubbing effect across 
the face — and call it a day ! Drowning must be 
the most frightful death that a Parisian sidewalk 
favorite can die. It is not so much the death 
itself — it is the attendant circumstances. 

Across the river, in the older quarters of Paris, 
there is excitement when anybody on the block 
takes a bath — not so much excitement as for a 
fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On 
the eve of the fatal day the news spreads through 
the district that to-morrow poor Jacques is going 
to take a bath! A further reprieve has been 
denied him. He cannot put it off for another 
month, or even for another two weeks. His 
doom is nigh at hand; there is no hope — none! 
[78] 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



Kindly old Angeline, the midwife, shakes her 
head sadly as she goes about her simple duties. 

On the morrow the condemned man rises early 
and sees his spiritual adviser. He eats a hearty 
breakfast, takes an affectionate leave of his 
family and says he is prepared for the worst. 
At the appointed hour the tumbrel enters 
the street, driven by the paid executioner — a 
descendant of the original Sanson — and bearing 
the dread instrument of punishment, a large 
oblong tin tub. 

The rumble of the heavy wheels over the 
cobbles seems to wake an agonized chord in 
every bosom. To-day this dread visitation de- 
scends on Jacques; but who can tell — so the 
neighbors say to themselves — when the same 
fate may strike some other household now 
happily unconscious! All along the narrow 
way sorrow-drooped heads protrude in rows; 
from every casement dangle whiskers, lank and 
stringy with sympathy — ^for in this section every 
true Frenchman has whiskers, and if by chance 
he has not his wife has; so that there are whiskers 
for all. 

From the window of the doomed wretch's 
apartments a derrick protrudes — a crossarm 
with a pulley and a rope attached. It bears a 
grimly significant resemblance to a gallows tree. 
Under the direction of the presiding functionary 
the tub is made fast to the tackle and hoisted up- 
ward as pianos and safes are hoisted in Ameri- 
can cities. It halts at the open casement. It 
[79] 



EUROPE REVISED 



vanishes within. The whole place resounds with 
low murmurs of horror and commiseration. 

Ah, the poor Jacques — how he must suffer! 
Hark to that low, sickening thud! 'Tis the 
accursed soap dropping from his nerveless grasp. 
Hist to that sound — like unto a death rattle! 
It is the water gurgling in the tub. And what 
means that low, poignant, smothered gasp? It 
is the last convulsive cry of Jacques descending 
into the depths. All is over! Let us pray! 

The tub, emptied but stained, is lowered to 
the waiting cart. The executioner kisses the 
citizen who has held his horse for him during 
his absence and departs; the whole district still 
hums with ill-suppressed excitement. Questions 
fly from tongue to tongue. Was the victim 
brave at the last.^ Was he resigned when the 
dread moment came.f^ And how is the family 
bearing up? It is hours before the place settles 
down again to that calm which will endure for 
another month, until somebody else takes a bath 
on a physician's prescription. 

Even in the sanctity of a Paris hotel n bath 
is more or less a public function unless you lock 
your door. All sorts of domestic servitors drift 
in, filled with a morbid curiosity to see how a 
foreigner deports himself when engaged in this 
strange, barbaric rite. On the occasion of my 
first bath on French soil, after several of the 
hired help had thus called on me informally, 
causing me to cower low in my porcelain re- 
treat, I took advantage of a moment of com- 
[80] 




a^fcfit'"* 



I HAD HEARD THAT ONE FELL, HEADLONG INTO ITS SMOTHEEING FOLDS 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



parative quiet to rise drippingly and draw the 
latch. I judged the proprietor would be along 
next, and I was not dressed for him. The Lady 
Susanna of whom mention has previously been 
made must have stopped at a French hotel at 
some time of her life. This helps us to under- 
stand why she remained so calm when the elders 
happened in. 

Even as now practiced, bathing still remains 
a comparative novelty in the best French circles, 
I imagine. I base this presumption on observa- 
tions made during a visit to Versailles. I went 
to Versailles; I trod with reverent step those 
historic precincts adorned with art treasures 
uncountable, with curios magnificent, with relics 
invaluable. I visited the little palace and the 
big; I ventured deep into that splendid forest 
where, in the company of ladies regarding whom 
there has been a good deal of talk subsequently, 
France's Grandest and Merriest Monarch dis- 
ported himself. And I found out what made the 
Merriest Monarch merry — so far as I could see, 
there was not a bathroom on the place. He was 
a true Frenchman — was Louis the Fourteenth. 

In Berlin, at the Imperial Palace, our ex- 
perience was somewhat similar. Led by a guide 
we walked through acres of state drawing rooms 
and state dining rooms and state reception 
rooms and state picture rooms ; and we were told 
that most of them — or, at least, many of them 
— were the handiwork of the late Andreas 
Schliiter. The deceased Schlliter was an archi- 
[83 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



tect, a painter, a sculptor, a woodcarver, a dec- 
orator, all rolled into one. He was the George 
M. Cohan of his time; and I think he also played 
the clarinet, being a German. 

We traversed miles of these Schliiter master- 
pieces. Eventually we heard sounds of martial 
music without, and we went to a window over- 
looking a paved courtyard; and from that point 
we presently beheld a fine sight. For the mo- 
ment the courtyard was empty, except that in 
the center stood a great mass of bronze— by 
Schliiter, I think — a heroic equestrian statue of 
Saint George in the act of destroying the first 
adulterated German sausage. But in a minute 
the garrison turned out; and then in through an 
arched gateway filed the relief guard headed by 
a splendid band, with bell-hung standards 
jingling at the head of the column and young 
oflScers stalking along as stiff as ramrods, and 
soldiers marching with the goosestep. 

In the German army the private who raises 
his knee the highest and sticks his shank out 
ahead of him the straightest, and slams his foot 
down the hardest and jars his brain the pain- 
fulest, is promoted to be a corporal and given a 
much heavier pair of shoes, so that he may 
make more noise and in time utterly destroy his 
reason. The goosestep would be a great thing 
for destroying grasshoppers or cutworms in a 
plague year in a Kansas wheatfield. 

At the Kaiser's palace we witnessed all these 
sights, but we did not run across any bathrooms 
[84] 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



or any bathtubs. However, we were in the pubhc 
end of the establishment and I regard it as 
probable that in the other wing, where the 
Kaiser lives when at home, there are plenty of 
bathrooms. I did not investigate personally. 
The Kaiser was out at Potsdam and I did not 
care to call in his absence. 

Bathrooms are plentiful at the hotel where we 
stopped at Berlin. I had rather hoped to find 
the bedroom equipped with an old-fashioned 
German feather bed. I had heard that one 
scaled the side of a German bed on a stepladder 
and then fell headlong into its smothering folds 
like a gallant fireman invading a burning rag 
warehouse; but this hotel happened to be the 
best hotel that I ever saw outside the United 
States. It had been built and it was managed 
on American lines, plus German domestic serv- 
ice — which made an incomparable combination 
— and it was furnished with modern beds and 
provided with modern bathrooms. 

Probably as a delicate compliment to the 
Kaiser, the bathtowels were starched until the 
fringes at the ends bristled up stijQQiy a-curl, like 
the ends of His Imperial Majesty's equally im- 
perial mustache. Just once — and once only — 
I made the mistake of rubbing myself with one 
of those towels just as it was. I should have 
softened it first by a hackling process, as we 
used to hackle the hemp in Kentucky; but I 
did not. For two days I felt like an etching. 
I looked something like one too. 

[85] 



EUROPE REVISED 



In Vienna we could not get a bedroom with a 
bathroom attached — they did not seem to have 
any — but we were told there was a bathroom 
just across the hall which we might use with 
the utmost freedom. This bathroom was a 
large, long, loftly, marble-walled vault. It was 
as cold as a tomb and as gloomy as one, and very 
smelly. Indeed it greatly resembled the pictures 
I have seen of the sepulcher of an Egyptian king 
— only I would have said that this particular 
king had been skimpily embalmed by the royal 
undertakers in the first place, and then imper- 
fectly packed. The bathtub was long and 
marked with scars, and it looked exactly like a 
rifled mummy case with the lid missing, which 
added greatly to the prevalent illusion. 

We used this bathroom ad lib.: but when I 
went to pay the bill I found an ofiicial had been 
keeping tabs on us, and that all baths taken 
had been charged up at the rate of sixty cents 
apiece. I had provided my own soap too! For 
that matter the traveler provides his own soap 
everywhere in Europe, outside of England. In 
some parts soap is regarded as an edible and in 
some as a vice common to foreigners; but every- 
where except in the northern countries it is a 
curio. 

So in Vienna they made us furnish our own 
soap and then charged us more for a bath than 
they did for a meal. Still, by their standards, I 
dare say they were right. A meal is a necessity, 
but a bath is an exotic luxury; and, since they 
[86] 




WHO CAN TELL WHEN THE SAME FATE MAY STRIKE SOME OTHER HOUSEHOLD! 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



have no extensive tariff laws in Austria, it is 
but fair that the foreigner should pay the tax. 
I know I paid mine, one way or another. 

Speaking of bathing reminds me of washing; 
and speaking of washing reminds me of an ad- 
venture I had in Vienna in connection with a 
white waistcoat — or, as we would call it down 
where I was raised, a dress vest. This vest had 
become soiled through travel and wear across 
Europe. At Vienna I intrusted it to the laundry 
along with certain other garments. When the 
bundle came back my vest was among the 
missing. 

The maid did not seem to be able to compre- 
hend the brand of German I use in casual 
conversation; so, through an interpreter, I ex- 
plained to her that I was shy one white vest. 
For two days she brought all sorts of vests and 
submitted them to me on approval — ^thin ones 
and thick ones; old ones and new ones; slick 
ones and woolly ones; fringed ones and frayed 
ones. I think the woman had a private vest 
mine somewhere, and went and tapped a fresh 
vein on my account every few minutes; but it 
never was the right vest she brought me. 

Finally I told her in my best German, mean- 
time accompanying myself with appropriate yet 
graceful gestures, that she need not concern her- 
self further with the affair; she could just let the 
matter drop and I would interview the manager 
and put in a claim for the value of the lost gar- 
ment. She looked at me dazedly a moment while 
[89] 



EUROPE REVISED 



I repeated the injunction more painstakingly 
than before; and, at that, understanding seemed 
to break down the barriers of her reason and she 
said, "/a/ Ja/" Then she nodded emphatically- 
several times, smiled and hurried away and in 
twenty minutes was back, bringing with her a 
begging friar of some monastic order or other. 

I would take it as a personal favor if some 
student of the various Teutonic tongues and 
jargons would inform me whether there is any 
word in Viennese for white vest that sounds like 
Catholic priest! However, we prayed together 
— that brown brother and I. I do not know 
what he prayed for, but I prayed for my vest. 

I never got it though. I doubt whether my 
prayer ever reached heaven — it had such a long 
way to go. It is farther from Vienna to heaven 
than from any other place in the world, I guess 
— unless it is Paris. That vest is still wandering 
about the damp-filled corridors of that hotel, 
mooing in a plaintive manner for its mate — 
which is myself. It will never find a suitable 
adopted parent. It was especially coopered to 
my form by an expert clothing contractor, and 
it will not fit anyone else. No; it will wander 
on and on, the starchy bulge of its bosom dimly 
phosphorescent in the gloaming, its white pearl 
buttons glimmering spectrally; and after a while 
the hotel will get the reputation of being haunted 
by the ghost of a flour barrel, and will have a 
bad name and lose custom. I hope so anyway. 
It looks to be my one chance of getting even 
[90 1 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 



with the owner for penaHzing me in the matter 
of baths. 

From Vienna we went southward into the 
Tyrolese Alps. It was a wonderful ride — that 
ride through the Semmering and on down to 
Northern Italy. Our absurdly short little loco- 
motive, drawing our absurdly long train, went 
boring in and out of a wrinkly shoulder-seam 
of the Tyrols like a stubby needle going through 
a tuck. I think in thirty miles we threaded 
thirty tunnels; after that I was practically as- 
phyxiated and lost count. 

If I ever take that journey again I shall wear 
a smoke helmet and be comfortable. But 
always between tunnels there were views to be 
seen that would have revived one of the Seven 
Sleepers. Now, on the great-granddaddy-long- 
legs of all the spidery trestles that ever were 
built, we would go roaring across a mighty gorge, 
its sides clothed with perpendicular gardens and 
vineyards, and with little gray towns clustering 
under the ledges on its sheer walls like mud- 
daubers' nests beneath an eave. Now, perched 
on a ridgy outcrop of rock like a single tooth in 
a snaggled reptilian jaw, would be a deserted 
tower, making a fellow think of the good old 
feudal days when the robber barons robbed the 
traveler instead of as at present, when the job 
is so completely attended to by the pirates who 
weigh and register baggage in these parts. 

Then — whish, roar, eclipse, darkness and sul- 
phureted hydrogen! — we would dive into an- 
[91] 



EUROPE REVISED 



other tunnel and out again — gasping — on a 
breathtaking panorama of mountains. Some of 
them would be standing up against the sky like 
the jagged top of a half-finished cutout puzzle, 
and some would be buried so deeply in clouds 
that only their peaked blue noses showed sharp 
above the featherbed mattresses of mist in which 
they were snuggled, as befitted mountains of 
Teutonic extraction. And nearly every eminence 
was crowned with a ruined castle or a hotel. It 
was easy to tell a hotel from a ruin — it had a 
sign over the door. 

At one of those hotels I met up with a home- 
sick American. He was marooned there in the 
rain, waiting for the skies to clear, so he could 
do some mountain climbing; and he was be- 
ginning to get moldy from the prevalent damp. 
By now the study of bathing habits had become 
an obsession with me; I asked him whether he 
had encountered any bathtubs about the place. 
He said a bathtub in those altitudes was as rare 
as a chamois, and the chamois was entirely 
extinct; so I might make my own calculations. 
But he said he could show me something that 
was even a greater curiosity than a bathtub, 
and he led me to where a moonfaced barometer 
hung alongside the front entrance of the hotel. 

He said he had been there a week now and 
had about lost hope; but every time he threat- 
ened to move on, the proprietor would take him 
out there and prove that they were bound to 
have clearing weather within a few hours, be- 
[92] 



JACQUES, THE FORSAKEN 

cause the barometer registered fair. At that 
moment streams of chilly rain-water were 
coursing down across the dial of the barometer, 
but it registered fair even then. He said — ^the 
American did— that it was the most stationary 
barometer he had ever seen, and the most reli- 
able — not vacillating and given to moods, like 
most barometers, but fixed and unchangeable 
in its habits. 

I matched it, though, with a thermometer I 
saw in the early spring of 1913 at a coast resort 
in southern California. An Eastern tourist 
would venture out on the windswept and drippy 
veranda, of a morning after breakfast. He would 
think he was cold. He would have many of the 
outward indications of being cold. His teeth 
would be chattering like a Morse sounder, and 
inside his white-duck pants his knees would be 
knocking together with a low, muflSed sound. 
He would be so prickled with gooseflesh that he 
felt like Saint Sebastian; but he would take a 
look at the thermometer — sixty-one in the shade ! 
And such was the power of mercury and mind 
combined over matter that he would immedi- 
ately chirk up and feel warm. 

Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, 
was one of those fickle-minded, variable ther- 
mometers, showing a temperature that ranged 
from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the 
hotel thermometer stood firm at sixty-one, no 
matter what happened. In a season of trying 
climatic conditions it was a great comfort — a 
[93] 



EUROPE REVISED 



boon really — not only to its owner but to his 
guests. Speaking personally, however, I have 
no need to consult the barometer's face to see 
what the weather is going to do, or the thermom- 
eter's tube to see what it has done. No person 
needs to do so who is favored naturally as I am. 
I have one of the most dependable soft corns 
in the business. 

Rome is full of baths — vast ruined ones 
erected by various emperors and still bearing 
their names — such as Caracalla's Baths and 
Titus' Baths, and so on. Evidently the ancient 
Romans were very fond of taking baths. 

Other striking dissimilarities between the an- 
cient Romans and the modern Romans are per- 
ceptible at a glance. 



[94 



CHAPTER V 

WHEN THE SEVEN A. M. TUT-TUT 
LEAVES FOR ANYWHERE 



BEING desirous of tendering sundry- 
hints and observations to such of my 
fellow countrymen as may contemplate 
trips abroad I shall, with their kindly 
permission, devote this chapter to setting forth 
briefly the following principles, which apply 
generally to railroad travel in the Old World. 

First — On the Continent all trains leave at 
or about seven a. m. and reach their destination 
at or about eleven p. m. You may be going a 
long distance or a short one — it makes no differ- 
ence; you leave at seven and you arrive at 
eleven. The few exceptions to this rule are of 
no consequence and do not count. 

Second — A trunk is the most costly luxury 
known to European travel. If I could sell my 
small, shrinking and flat-chested steamer trunk 
— original value in New York eighteen dollars 
and seventy-five cents — for what it cost me 
over on the other side in registration fees, 
[95] 



EUROPE REVISED 



excess charges, mental wear and tear, freightage, 
forwarding and warehousing bills, tips, bribes, 
indulgences, and acts of barratry and piracy, I 
should be able to laugh in the income tax's face. 
In this connection I would suggest to the tourist 
who is traveling with a trunk that he begin his 
land itinerary in Southern Italy and work north- 
ward; thereby, through the gradual shrinkage 
in weight, he will save much money on his 
trunk, owing to the pleasing custom among the 
Italian trainbands of prying it open and mak- 
ing a judicious selection from its contents for 
personal use and for gifts to friends and rela- 
tives. 

Third — For the sake of the experience, travel 
second class once; after that travel first class — 
and try to forget the experience. With the ex- 
ception of two or three special-fare, so-called 
de-luxe trains, first class over there is about what 
the service was on an accommodation, mixed- 
freight-and-passenger train in Arkansas imme- 
diately following the close of the Civil War. 

Fourth — ^When buying a ticket for anywhere 
you will receive a cunning little booklet full of 
detachable leaves, the whole constituting a vol- 
ume about the size and thickness of one of those 
portfolios of views that came into popularity 
with us at the time of the Philadelphia Cen- 
tennial. Surrender a sheet out of your book on 
demand of the uniformed oflScial who will come 
through the train at from five to seven minute 
intervals. However, he will collect only a sheet 
[96] 




\^^ 



A GERMAN CIGAR KEEPS OFF ANT DISEASE EXCEPT THE CHOLERA: 
IT GIVES TOU THE CHOLERA 



WHEN THE SEVEN A.M. LEAVES 

every other trip; on the alternate trips he will 
merely examine your ticket with the air of never 
having seen it before, and will fold it over, and 
perforate it with his punching machine and re- 
turn it to you. By the time you reach your 
destination nothing will be left but the cover; 
but do not cast this carelessly aside; retain it 
until you are filing out of the terminal, when 
it will be taken up by a haughty voluptuary 
with whiskers. If you have not got it you can- 
not escape. You will have to go back and live 
on the train, which is, indeed, a frightful fate 
to contemplate. 

Fifth — Reach the station half an hour before 
the train starts and claim your seat; then tip 
the guard liberally to keep other passengers out 
of your compartment. He has no intention of 
doing so, but it is customary for Americans to 
go through this pleasing formality — and it is 
expected of them. 

Sixth — Tip everybody on the train who wears 
a uniform. Be not afraid of hurting some one's 
feelings by offering a tip to the wrong person. 
There will not be any wrong person. A tip 
is the one form of insult that anybody in 
Europe will take. 

Seventh — Before entering the train inhale 
deeply several times. This will be your last 
chance of getting any fresh air until you reach 
your destination. For self-defense against the 
germ life prevailing in the atmosphere of the 
unventilated compartments, smoke a German 
[99 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



cigar. A German cigar keeps off any disease 
except the cholera; it gives you the cholera. 

Eighth — Do not linger on the platform, wait- 
ing for the locomotive whistle to blow, or the 
bell to ring, or somebody to yell "All aboard!" 
If you do this you will probably keep on linger- 
ing until the following morning at seven. As a 
starting signal the presiding functionary renders 
a brief solo on a tiny tin trumpet. One puny 
warning blast from this instrument sets the 
whole train in motion. It makes you think of 
Gabriel bringing on the Day of Judgment by 
tootling on a penny whistle. Another interest- 
ing point: The engine does not say Choo-choo 
as in our country — it says Tut-tut. 

Ninth — In England, for convenience in claim- 
ing your baggage, change your name to Xeno- 
phon or Zymology — there are always about the 
baggage such crowds of persons who have the 
commoner initials, such as T for Thompson, 
J for Jones, and S for Smith. When next I go 
to England my name will be Zoroaster — Quintus 
P. Zoroaster. 

Tenth — If possible avoid patronizing the so- 
called refreshment wagons or dining cars, which 
are expensive and uniformly bad. Live off the 
country. Remember, the country is living off 
you. 



100 1 



CHAPTER VI 

LA BELLE FRANCE BEING THE FIRST 
STOP 



EXCEPT eighty or ninety other things the 
British Channel was the most disap- 
pointing thing we encountered in our 
travels. All my reading on this subject 
had led me to expect that the Channel would be 
very choppy and that we should all be very 
seasick. Nothing of the sort befell. The chan- 
nel may have been suetty but it was not choppy. 
The steamer that ferried us over ran as steadily 
as a clock and everybody felt as fine as a fiddle. 
A friend of mine whom I met six weeks later 
in Florence had better luck. He crossed on an 
occasion when a test was being made of a device 
for preventing seasickness. A Frenchman was 
the inventor and also the experimenter. This 
Frenchman had spent valuable years of his life 
perfecting his invention. It resembled a ham- 
mock swung between uprights. The supports 
were to be bolted to the deck of the ship, and 
when the Channel began to misbehave the 
f 1011 



EUROPE REVISED 



squeamish passenger would climb into the 
hammock and fasten himself in; and then, by 
a system of reciprocating oscillations, the ham- 
mock would counteract the motion of the ship 
and the occupant would rest in perfect comfort 
no matter how high she pitched or how deep 
she rolled. At least such was the theory of the 
inventor; and to prove it he offered himself as 
the subject for the first actual demonstration. 

The result was unexpected. The sea was only 
moderately rough; but that patent hammock 
bucked like a kicking bronco. The poor French- 
man was the only seasick person aboard — but 
he was sick enough for the whole crowd. He 
was seasick with a Gallic abandon; he was sea- 
sick both ways from the jack, and other ways 
too. He was strapped down so he could not 
get out, which added no little to the pleasure 
of the occasion for everybody except himself. 
When the steamer landed the captain of the 
boat told the distressed owner that, in his 
opinion, the device was not suited for steamer 
use. He advised him to rent it to a riding 
academy. 

In crossing from Dover to Calais we had 
thought we should be going merely from one 
country to another; we found we had gone from 
one world to another. That narrow strip of un- 
easy water does not separate two countries — it 
separates two planets. 

Gone were the incredible stiffness and the in- 
curable honesty of the race that belonged over 

f 102 1 



LA BELLE FRANCE 



yonder on those white chalk cliffs dimly visible 
along the horizon. Gone were the phlegm and 
stolidity of those people who manifest emotion 
only on the occasions when they stand up to 
sing their national anthem : 

God save the King! 
The Queen is doing well! 

Gone were the green fields of Sussex, which 
looked as though they had been taken in every 
night and brushed and dry-cleaned and then 
put down again in the morning. Gone were the 
trees that Maxfield Parrish might have painted, 
so vivid were they in their burnished green-and- 
yellow coloring, so spectacular in their grouping. 
Gone was the five-franc note which I had in- 
trusted to a sandwich vender on the railroad 
platform in the vain hope that he would come 
back with the change. After that clincher there 
was no doubt about it — we were in La Belle 
France all right, all right! 

Everything testified to the change. From 
the pier where we landed, a small boy, in a long 
black tunic belted in at his waist, was fishing; 
he hooked a little fingerling. At the first tenta- 
tive tug on his line he set up a shrill clamor. 
At that there came running a fat, kindly looking 
old priest in a long gown and a shovel hat; and 
a market woman came, who had arms like a 
wrestler and skirts that stuck out like a ballet 
dancer's; and a soldier in baggy red pants came; 
and thirty or forty others of all ages and sizes 
[103 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



came — and they gathered about that small boy 
and gave him advice at the top of their voices. 
And when he yanked out the shining little silver 
fish there could not have been more animation 
and enthusiasm and excitement if he had landed 
a full-grown Presbyterian. 

They were still congratulating him when we 
pulled out and went tearing along on our way 
to Paris, scooting through quaint, stone-walled 
cities, each one dominated by its crumbly old 
cathedral; sliding through open country where 
the fields were all diked and ditched with small 
canals and bordered with poplars trimmed so 
that each tree looked like a set of undertaker's 
whiskers pointing the wrong way. 

And in these fields were peasants in sabots 
at work, looking as though they had just 
stepped out of one of Millet's pictures. Even 
the haystacks and the scarecrows were different. 
In England the haystacks had been geometrically 
correct in their dimensions— so square and firm 
and exact that sections might be sliced off them 
like cheese, and doors and windows might be 
carved in them; but these French haystacks 
were devil-may-care haystacks wearing tufts on 
their polls like headdresses. The windmills had 
a rakish air; and the scarecrows in the truck 
gardens were debonair and cocky, tilting them- 
selves back on their pins the better to enjoy the 
view and fluttering their ragged vestments in a 
most jaunty fashion. The land though looked 
poor — it had a driven, overworked look to it. 
[ 104 1 




ALL AGES AND SIZES GATHERED ABOUT THAT SMALL BOT AND GAVE HIM 
ADVICE AT THE TOP OF THEIH VOICES 



LA BELLE FRANCE 



Presently, above the clacking voice of our 
train, we heard a whining roar without; and 
peering forth we beheld almost over our heads 
a big monoplane racing with us. It seemed a 
mighty, winged Thunder Lizard that had come 
back to link the Age of Stone with the Age of 
Air. On second thought I am inclined to be- 
lieve the Thunder Lizard did not flourish in the 
Stone Age; but if you like the simile as much as 
I like it we will just let it stand. 

Three times on that trip we saw from the 
windows of our train aviators out enjoying the 
cool of the evening in their airships; and each 
time the natives among the passengers jammed 
into the passageway that flanked the compart- 
ments and speculated regarding the identity of 
the aviators and the make of their machines, 
and argued and shrugged their shoulders and 
quarreled and gesticulated. The whole thing 
was as Frenchy as tripe in a casserole. 

I was wrong, though, a minute ago when I 
said there remained nothing to remind us of the 
right little, tight little island we had just quit; 
for we had two Englishmen in our compartment 
— fit and proper representatives of a certain 
breed of Englishman. They were tall and lean, 
and had the languid eyes and the long, weary 
faces and the yellow buck teeth of weary cart- 
horses, and they each wore a fixed expression 
of intense gloom. You felt sure it was a fixed 
expression because any person with such an 
expression would change it if he could do so by 
[1071 



EUROPE REVISED 



anything short of a surgical operation. And it 
was quite evident they had come mentally 
prepared to disapprove of all things and all 
people in a foreign clime. 

Silently, but none the less forcibly, they re- 
sented the circumstance that others should be 
sharing the same compartment with them — or 
sharing the same train, either, for that matter. 
The compartment was full, too, which made the 
situation all the more intolerable: an elderly 
English lady with a placid face under a mid- 
Victorian bonnet; a young, pretty woman who 
was either English or American; the two mem- 
bers of my party, and these two Englishmen. 

And when, just as the train was drawing out 
of Calais, they discovered that the best two 
seats, which they had promptly preempted, be- 
longed to others, and that the seats for which 
they held reservations faced rearward, so that 
they must ride with their backs to the locomo- 
tive — why, that irked them sore and more. I 
imagine they wrote a letter to the London 
Times about it afterward. 

As is the pleasing habit of traveling English- 
men, they had brought with them everything 
portable they owned. Each one had four or 
five large handbags, and a carryall, and a hat 
box, and his tea-caddy, and his plaid blanket 
done up in a shawlstrap, and his framed picture 
of the Death of Nelson — and all the rest of it; 
and they piled those things in the luggage racks 
until both the racks were chock-full; so the rest 
[108] 



LA BELLE FRANCE 



of US had to hold our baggage in our laps or 
sit on it. 

One of them was facing me not more than 
five or six feet distant. He never saw me 
though. He just gazed steadily through me, 
studying the pattern of the upholstery on the 
seat behind me; and I could tell by his look 
that he did not care for the upholstering — as 
very naturally he would not, it being French. 

We had traveled together thus for some hours 
when one of them began to cloud up for a sneeze. 
He tried to sidetrack it, but it would not be 
sidetracked. The rest of us, looking on, seemed 
to hear that sneeze coming from a long way off. 
It reminded me of a musical-sketch team giving 
an imitation of a brass band marching down 
Main Street playing the Turkish Patrol — dim 
and faint at first, you know, and then growing 
louder and stronger, and gathering volume until 
it bursts right in your face. 

Fascinated, we watched his struggles. Would 
he master it or would it master him? But he 
lost, and it was probably a good thing he did. 
If he had swallowed that sneeze it would have 
drowned him. His nose jibed and went about; 
his head tilted back farther and farther; his 
countenance expressed deep agony, and then 
the log jam at the bend in his nose went out 
with a roar and he let loose the moistest, loudest 
kerswoosh! that ever was, I reckon. 

He sneezed eight times. The first sneeze un- 
buttoned his waistcoat, the second unparted his 
f 109 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



hair, and the third one almost pulled his shoes 
off; and after that they grew really violent, until 
the last sneeze shifted his cargo and left him 
with a list to port and his lee scuppers awash. 
It made a ruin of him — the Prophet Isaiah could 
not have remained dignified wrestling with a 
sneezing bee of those dimensions — but oh, how 
it did gladden the rest of us to behold him at 
the mercy of the elements and to note what 
a sodden, waterlogged wreck they made of him! 

It was not long after that before we had an- 
other streak of luck. The train Jolted over 
something and a hat fell down from the top- 
most pinnacle of the mountain of luggage above 
and hit his friend on the nose. We should have 
felt better satisfied if it had been a coal scuttle; 
but it was a reasonably bard and heavy hat 
and it hit him brim first on the tenderest part 
of his nose and made his eyes water, and we 
were grateful enough for small blessings. One 
should not expect too much of an already over- 
worked Providence. 

The rest of us were still warm and happy in 
our souls when, without any whistle-tooting or 
bell-clanging or station-calling, we slid silently, 
almost surreptitiously, into the Gare du Nord, 
at Paris. Neither in England nor on the main- 
land does anyone feel called on to notify you 
that you have reached your destination. 

It is like the old formula for determining the 
sex of a pigeon — you give the suspected bird 
some corn, and if he eats it he is a he; but if she 
f 110 1 



LA BELLE FRANCE 



eats it she is a she. In Europe if it is your des- 
tination you get off, and if it is not your destina- 
tion you stay on. On this occasion we stayed 
on, feehng rather forlorn and helpless, until we 
saw that everyone else had piled off. We gath- 
ered up our belongings and piled off too. 

By that time all the available porters had 
been engaged; so we took up our luggage and 
walked. We walked the length of the trainshed 
— and then we stepped right into the recreation 
hall of the State Hospital for the Criminal In- 
sane, at Matteawan, New York. I knew the 
place instantly, though the decorations had been 
changed since I was there last. It was a joy to 
come on a home institution so far from home — 
joysome, but a trifle disconcerting too, because 
all the keepers had died or gone on strike or 
something; and the lunatics, some of them being 
in uniform and some in civilian dress, were leap- 
ing from crag to crag, uttering maniacal shrieks. 

Divers lunatics, who had been away and were 
just getting back, and sundry lunatics who were 
fixing to go away and apparently did not expect 
ever to get back, were dashing headlong into the 
arms of still other lunatics, kissing and hugging 
them, and exchanging farewells and sacre-bleuing 
with them in the maddest fashion imaginable. 
From time to time I laid violent hands on a 
flying, flitting maniac and detained him against 
his will, and asked him for some directions; but 
the persons to whom I spoke could not under- 
stand me, and when they answered I could not 
[111] 



EUROPE REVISED 



understand them; so we did not make much 
headway by that. 

I could not get out of that asylum until I had 
surrendered the covers of our ticket books and 
claimed our baggage and put it through the cus- 
toms office. I knew that; the trouble was I 
could not find the place for attending to these 
details. On a chance I tried a door, but it was 
distinctly the wrong place; and an elderly female 
on duty there got me out by employing the uni- 
versal language known of all peoples. She shook 
her skirts at me and said Shoo! So I got out, 
still toting five or six bags and bundles of as- 
sorted sizes and shapes, and tried all the other 
doors in sight. 

Finally, by a process of elimination and de- 
duction, I arrived at the right one. To make it 
harder for me they had put it around a corner 
in an elbow-shaped wing of the building and 
had taken the sign off the door. This place was 
full of porters and loud cries. To be on the safe 
side I tendered retaining fees to three of the 
porters; and thus by the time I had satisfied 
the customs officials that I had no imported 
spirits or playing cards or tobacco or soap, or 
other contraband goods, and had cleared our 
baggage and started for the cabstand, we 
amounted to quite a stately procession and at- 
tracted no little attention as we passed along. 
But the tips I had to hand out before the taxi 
started would stagger the human imagination 
if I told you the sum total. 
[112] 



LA BELLE FRANCE 



There are few finer things than to go into 
Paris for the first time on a warm, bright Satur- 
day night. At this moment I can think of but 
one finer thing — and that is when, wearied of 
being short-changed and bilked and double- 
charged, and held up for tips or tribute at every 
step, you are leaving Paris on a Saturday night 
— or, in fact, any night. 

Those first impressions of the life on the 
boulevards are going to stay in my memory a 
long, long time — the people, paired off at the 
tables of the sidewalk cafes, drinking drinks of 
all colors; a little shopgirl wearing her new, 
cheap, fetching hat in such a way as to center 
public attention on her head and divert it from 
her feet, which were shabby; two small errand 
boys in white aprons, standing right in the mid- 
dle of the whirling, swirling traffic, in im- 
minent peril of their lives, while one lighted 
his cigarette butt from the cigarette butt 
of his friend; a handful of roistering soldiers, 
singing as they swept six abreast along the wide, 
rutty sidewalk; the kiosks for advertising, all 
thickly plastered over with posters, half of 
which should have been in an art gallery and 
the other half in a garbage barrel; a well-dressed 
pair, kissing in the full glare of a street light; 
an imitation art student, got up to look like an 
Apache, and — no doubt — plenty of real Apaches 
got up to look like human beings; a silk-hatted 
gentleman, stopping with perfect courtesy to 
help a bloused workman lift a baby-laden baby 
[113 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



carriage over an awkward spot in the curbing, 
and the workingman returning thanks with the 
same perfect courtesy; our own driver, careening 
along in a manner suggestive of what certain 
East Side friends of mine would call the Chariot 
Race from Ben Hirsch; and a stout lady of the 
middle class sitting under a cafe awning caress- 
ing her pet mole. 

To the Belgian belongs the credit of domes- 
ticating the formerly ferocious Belgian hare, 
and the East Indian fakir makes a friend and 
companion of the king cobra; but it remained 
for those ingenious people, the Parisians, to 
tame the mole, which other races have always 
regarded as unbeautiful and unornamental, and 
make a cunning little companion of it and spend 
hours stroking its fleece. This particular mole 
belonging to the stout middle-aged lady in ques- 
tion was one of the largest moles and one of 
the curliest I ever saw. It was on the side of 
her nose. 

You see a good deal of mole culture going on 
here. Later, with the reader's permission, we 
shall return to Paris and look its inhabitants 
over at more length; but for the time being I 
think it well for us to be on our travels. In 
passing I would merely state that on leaving 
a Paris hotel you will tip everybody on the 
premises. 

Oh, yes — but you will! 

Let us move southward. Let us go to Sunny 
Italy, which is called Sunny Italy for the same 
[114] 



LA BELLE FRANCE 



reason that the laughing hyena is called the 
laughing hyena — not because he laughs so 
frequently, but because he laughs so seldom. 
Let us go to Rome, the Eternal City, sitting 
on her Seven Hills, remembering as we go 
along that the currency has changed and we 
no longer compute sums of money in the franc 
but in the lira. I regret the latter word is not 
pronounced as spelled — it would give me a 
chance to say that the common coin of Italy is 
a lira, and that nearly everybody in Rome is 
one also. 



[115 1 



CHAPTER VII 

THENCE ON AND ON TO VERBOTEN- 
LAND 



AH, Rome — the Roma of the Ancients 
—the Mistress of the Olden World— 
the Sacred City! Ah, Rome, if only 
your stones could speak! It is cus- 
tomary for the tourist, taking his cue from the 
guidebooks, to carry on like this, forgetting in 
his enthusiasm that, even if they did speak, 
they would doubtless speak Italian, which would 
leave him practically where he was before. And 
so, having said it myself according to formula, 
I shall proceed to state the actual facts: 

If, coming forth from a huge and dirty ter- 
minal, you emerge on a splendid plaza, miserably 
paved, and see a priest, a soldier and a beggar; 
a beautiful child wearing nothing at all to speak 
of, and a hideous old woman with the eyes of a 
Madonna looking out of a tragic mask of a face; 
a magnificent fountain, and nobody using the 
water, and a great, overpowering smell — yes, 
you can see a Roman smell; a cart mule with 
[116] 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

ten dollars' worth of trappings on him, and a 
driver with ten cents' worth on him; a palace 
like a dream of stone, entirely surrounded by 
nightmare hovels; a new, shiny, modern apart- 
ment house, and shouldering up against it a 
cankered rubbish heap that was once the play- 
house of a Caesar, its walls bearded like a pard's 
face with tufted laurel and splotched like a 
brandy drunkard's with red stains; a church 
that is a dismal ruin without and a glittering 
Aladdin's Cave of gold and gems and porphyry 
and onyx within; a wide and handsome avenue 
starting from one festering stew of slums and 
ending in another festering stew of slums; a 
grimed and broken archway opening on a lovely 
hidden courtyard where trees are green and 
flowers bloom, and in the center there stands a 
statue which is worth its weight in minted silver 
and which carries more than its weight in dirt — 
if in addition everybody in sight is smiling and 
good-natured and happy, and is trying to sell 
you something or wheedle you out of something, 
or pick your pocket of something — you need not, 
for confirmatory evidence, seek the vast dome 
of St. Peter's rising yonder in the distance, or 
the green tops of the cedars ,and the dusky 
clumps of olive groves on the hillsides beyond 
— you know you are in Rome. 

To get the correct likeness of Naples we 
merely reduce the priests by one-half and in- 
crease the beggars by two-thirds; we richen the 
color masses, thicken the dirt, raise the smells 
[117 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



to the nth degree, and set half the populace to 
singing. We establish in every second doorway 
a mother with her offspring tucked between her 
knees and forcibly held there while the mother 
searches the child's head for a flea; anyhow, it 
is more charitable to say it is a flea; and we 
add a special touch of gorgeousness to the street 
pictures. 

For here a cart is a glory of red tires and blue 
shafts, and green hubs and pink body and pur- 
ple tailgate, with a canopy on it that would 
have suited Sheba's Queen; and the mule that 
draws the cart is caparisoned in brass and 
plumage like a circus pony; and the driver wears 
a broad red sash, part of a shirt, and half of a 
pair of pants— usually the front half. With an 
outfit such as that, you feel he should be peddling 
aurora borealises, or, at the very least, rain- 
bows. It is a distinct shock to find he has only 
chianti or cheeses or garbage in stock. 

In Naples, also, there is, even in the most 
prosaic thing, a sight to gladden your eye if 
you but hold your nose while you look on it. 
On the stalls of the truckvenders the cauliflowers 
and the cabbages are racked up with an artistic 
effect we could scarcely equal if we had roses 
and orchids to work with; the fishmonger's cart 
is a study in still life, and the tripe is what 
artists call a harmonious interior. 

Nearly all the hotels in Italy are converted 
palaces. They may have been successes as pal- 
aces, but, with their marble floors and their 
[118 1 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

high ceilings, and their dank, dark corridors, 
they distinctly fail to qualify as hotels. I should 
have preferred them remaining unsaved and 
sinful. I likewise observed a peculiarity com- 
mon to hotelkeepers in Italy — they all look like 
cats. The proprietor of the converted palace 
where we stopped in Naples was the very image 
of a tomcat we used to own, named Plutarch's 
Lives, which was half Maltese and half Mormon. 
He was a cat that had a fine carrying voice — 
— though better adapted for concert work than 
parlor singing — and a sweetheart in every port. 
This hotelkeeper might have been the cat's own 
brother with clothes on — he had Piute's roving 
eye and his bristling whiskers and his sharp 
white teeth, and Piute's silent, stealthy tread, 
and his way of purring softly until he had won 
your confidence and then sticking his claw into 
you. The only difference was, he stuck you 
with a bill instead of a claw. 

Another interesting idiosyncrasy of the Italian 
hotelkeeper is that he invariably swears to you 
his town is the only honest town in Italy, but 
begs you to beware of the next town which, he 
assures you with his hand on the place where 
his heart would be if he had a heart, is full of 
thieves and liars and counterfeit money and 
pickpockets. Half of what he tells you is true 
— the latter half. 

The tourist agencies issue pamphlets telling 
how you may send money or jewelry by regis- 
tered mail in Italy, and then append a footnote 
[119] 



EUROPE REVISED 



warning you against sending money or jewelry 
by registered mail in Italy. Likewise you are 
constantly being advised against carrying arti- 
cles of value in your trunk, unless it is most 
carefully locked, bolted and strapped. It is 
good advice too. 

An American I met on the boat coming home 
told me he failed to take such precautions while 
traveling in Italy; and he said that when he 
reached the Swiss border his trunk was so light 
he had to sit on it to keep it from blowing off 
the bus on the way from the station to the 
hotel, and so empty that when he opened it at 
both ends the draft whistling through it gave 
him a bad cold. However, he may have exag- 
gerated slightly. 

If you can forget that you are paying first- 
class prices for fourth-rate accommodations — 
forget the dirt in the carriages and the smells in 
the compartments — a railroad journey through 
the Italian Peninsula is a wonderful experience. 
I know it was a wonderful experience for me. 

I shall not forget the old walled towns of 
stone perched precariously on the sloping with- 
ers of razorbacked mountains — towns that were 
old when the Saviour was born; or the ancient 
Roman aqueducts, all pocked and pecked with 
age, looping their arches across the land for 
miles on miles ; or the fields, scored and scarified 
by three thousand years of unremitting, relent- 
less, everlasting agriculture; or the wide-horned 
Italian cattle that browsed in those fields; or 
[ 120 1 




THE SIGHT OF WOMEN DOING THE BULK OF THE HARD AND 
DIBTT FARMWORK BECOMES COMMON 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

yet the woman who darted to the door of every 
signal-house we passed and came to attention, 
with a long cudgel held flat against her shoulder 
like a sentry's musket. 

I do not know why a woman should exhibit 
an overgrown broomstick when an Italian train 
passes a flag station, any more than I know 
why, when a squad of Paris firemen march out 
of the engine house for exercise, they should 
carry carbines and knapsacks. I only know 
that these things are done. 

In Tuscany the vineyards make a fine show, 
for the vines are trained to grow up from the 
ground and then are bound into streamers and 
draped from one fruit tree or one shade tree to 
another, until a whole hillside becomes one long, 
confusing vista of leafy festoons. The thrifty 
owner gets the benefit of his grapes and of his 
trees, and of the earth below, too, for there he 
raises vegetables and grains, and the like. Like 
everything else in this land, the system is an 
old one. I judge it was old enough to be hack- 
neyed when Horace wrote of it: 

Now each man, hashing on his slopes. 
Weds to his widowed tree the vine; 
Then, as he gayly quaffs his wine. 

Salutes thee god of all his hopes. 

Classical quotations interspersed here and 
there are wonderful helps to a guide book, 
don't you think .f^ 

[ 123 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



In rural Italy there are two other scenic de- 
tails that strike the American as being most 
curious — one is the amazing prevalence of family- 
washing, and the other is the amazing scarcity 
of birdlife. To himself the traveler says: 

"What becomes of all this intimate and per- 
sonal display of family apparel I see fluttering 
from the front windows of every house in this 
country? Everybody is forever washing clothes 
but nobody ever wears it after it is washed. And 
what has become of all the birds?" 

For the first puzzle there is no key, but the 
traveler gets the answer to the other when he 
passes a meat-dealer's shop in the town and 
sees spread on the stalls heaps of pitiably 
small starlings and sparrows and finches ex- 
posed for sale. -, An Italian will cook and eat 
anything he can kill that has wings on it, from 
a cassowary to a katydid. 

Thinking this barbarity over, I started to get 
indignant; but just in time I remembered what 
we ourselves have done to decimate the canvas- 
back duck and the wild pigeon and the ricebird 
and the red-worsted pulse-warmer, and other 
pleasing wild creatures of the earlier days in 
America, now practically or wholly extinct. 
And I felt that before I could attend to the 
tomtits in my Italian brother's eye I must 
needs pluck a few buffaloes out of my own; so 
I decided, in view of those things, to collect 
myself and endeavor to remain perfectly calm. 

We came into Venice at the customary hour 
[ 124] 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

— to wit, eleven p. m. — and had a real treat as 
our train left the mainland and went gliding 
far out, seemingly right through the placid 
Adriatic, to where the beaded lights of Venice 
showed like a necklace about the withered throat 
of a long-abandoned bride, waiting in the rags 
of her moldered wedding finery for a bridegroom 
who comes not. 

Better even than this was the journey by 
gondola from the terminal through narrow canals 
and under stone bridges where the water lapped 
with little mouthing tongues at the walls, and 
the tall, gloomy buildings almost met overhead, 
so that only a tiny strip of star-buttoned sky 
showed between. And from dark windows high 
up came the tinkle of guitars and the sound of 
song pouring from throats of silver. And so we 
came to our hotel, which was another converted 
palace; but baptism is not regarded as essential 
to salvation in these parts. 

On the whole, Venice did not impress me as 
it has impressed certain other travelers. You 
see, I was born and raised in one of those Ohio 
Valley towns where the river gets emotional 
and temperamental every year or two. In my 
youth I had passed through several of these 
visitations, when the family would take the 
family plate and the family cow, and other 
treasures, and retire to the attic floor to wait for 
the spring rise to abate; and when really the 
most annoying phase of the situation for a house- 
keeper, sitting on the top landing of his stair- 
[125] 



EUROPE REVISED 



case watching the yellow wavelets lap inch by 
inch over the keys of the piano, and inch by inch 
climb up the new dining-room wallpaper, was 
to hear a knocking at a front window upstairs 
and go to answer it and find that Moscoe Bur- 
nett had come in a john-boat to collect the water 
tax. 

The Grand Canal did not stir me as it has 
stirred some— so far back as '84 I could remem- 
ber when Jefferson Street at home looked al- 
most exactly like that. 

Going through the Austrian Tyrol, between 
Vienna and Venice, I met two old and dear 
friends in their native haunts — the plush hat 
and the hot dog. When such a thing as this 
happens away over on the other side of the 
globe it helps us to realize how small a place this 
world is after all, and how closely all peoples are 
knitted together in common bonds of love and 
affection. The hot dog, as found here, is just 
as we know him throughout the length and 
breadth of our own land — a dropsical Wiener- 
wurst entombed in the depths of a rye-bread 
sandwich, with a dab of horse-radish above him 
to mark his grave; price, creation over, five 
cents the copy. 

The woolly plush hat shows no change either, 
except that if anything it is slightly woollier in 
the Alps than among us. As transplanted, the 
dinky little bow at the back is an affectation 
purely — but in these parts it is logical and 
serves a practical and a utilitarian purpose, be- 
[ 126] 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

cause the mountain byways twist and turn 
and double, and the local beverages are potent 
brews; and the weary mountaineer, homeward- 
bound afoot at the close of a market day, may 
by the simple expedient of reaching up and 
fingering his bow tell instantly whether he is 
going or coming. 

This is also a great country for churches. 
Every group of chalets that calls itself a village 
has at least one long-spired gray church in its 
midst, and frequently more than one. In one 
sweep of hillside view from our car window I 
counted seven church steeples. I do not think 
it was a particularly good day for churches 
either; I wished I might have passed through 
on a Sunday, when they would naturally be 
thicker. 

Along this stretch of railroad the mountaineers 
come to the stations wearing the distinctive 
costume of their own craggy and slabsided hills 
— the curling pheasant feather in the hatbrim; 
the tight-fitting knee-breeches ; the gaudy stock- 
ings; and the broad-suspendered belt with rows 
of huge brass buttons spangling it up and down 
and crosswise. Such is your pleasure at finding 
these quaint habiliments still in use amid set- 
tings so picturesque that you buy freely of the 
fancy-dressed individual's wares — for he always 
has something to sell. 

And then as your train pulls out, if by main 
force and awkwardness you jam a window open, 
as I did, and cast your eyes rearward for a f are- 
[127] 



EUROPE REVISED 



well peek, as I did, you will behold him, as I 
did, pulling off his parade clothes and climbing 
into the blue overalls and the jean jumpers of 
prosaic civilization, to wait until the next car- 
load lot of foreign tourists rolls in. The Eu- 
ropean peasant is indeed a simple, guileless 
creature — if you are careless about how you talk. 

In this district and on beyond, the sight of 
women doing the bulk of the hard and dirty 
farmwork becomes common. You see women 
plowing; women hoeing; women carrying in- 
credibly huge bundles of fagots and fodder on 
their heads; women hauling heavy carts, some- 
times with a straining, panting dog for a team- 
mate, sometimes unaccompanied except by a 
stalwart father or husband, or brother or son, 
who, puffing a china-bowled pipe, walks along- 
side to see that the poor human draft-animals 
do not shirk or balk, or shy over the traces. 

To one coming from a land where no decent 
man raises his hand against a woman — except, of 
course, in self-defense — this is indeed a startling 
sight to see; but worse is in store for him when 
he reaches Bohemia, on the upper edge of the 
Austrian Empire. In Bohemia, if there is a 
particularly nasty and laborious job to be done, 
such as spading up manure in the rain or grub- 
bing sugar-beets out of the half-frozen earth, 
they wish it on the dear old grandmother. She 
always seemed to me to be a grandmother — or 
old enough for one anyway. Perhaps, though, 
it is the life they lead, and not the years, that 
[ 128] 




THE MOST INGENIOUS AND WIDEAWAKE OF ALL THE EARLIER RULERS OP 
GERMANY, KING VERBOTEN 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

bends the backs of these women amd thickens 
their waists and mats their hair and turns their 
feet into clods and their hands into swollen, red 
monstrosities. 

Surely the Walrus, in Alice in Wonderland, 
had Germany in mind when he said the time 
had come to speak of cabbages and kings — be- 
cause Germany certainly does lead the known 
world in those two commodities. Everywhere in 
Germany you see them — the cabbages by the mil- 
lions and the billions, growing rank and purple 
in the fields and giving promise of the time when 
they will change from vegetable to vine and be- 
come the fragrant and luscious trailing sauer- 
kraut; but the kings, in stone or bronze, stand 
up in the marketplace or the public square, or 
on the bridge abutment, or just back of the 
brewery, in every German city and town along 
the route. 

By these surface indications alone the most 
inexperienced traveler would know he had 
reached Germany, even without the halt at the 
custom house on the border; or the crossing 
watchman in trim uniform jumping to attention 
at every roadcrossing; or the beautifully up- 
holstered, handswept state forests; or the 
hedges of willow trees along the brooks, stick- 
ing up their stubby, twiggy heads like so many 
disreputable hearth-brooms; or the young grain 
stretching in straight rows crosswise of the 
weedless fields and looking, at a distance, like 
fair green-printed lines evenly spaced on a wide 
[131] 



EUROPE REVISED 



brown page. Also, one observes everywhere 
surviving traces that are unmistakable of the 
reign of that most ingenious and wideawake of 
all the earlier rulers of Germany, King Verboten 
the Great. 

In connection with the life and works of this 
distinguished ruler is told an interesting legend 
well worthy of being repeated here. It would 
seem that King Verboten was the first crowned 
head of Europe to learn the value of keeping 
his name constantly before the reading public. 
Rameses the TMrd of Egypt — that enterprising 
old constant advertiser who swiped the pyra- 
mids of all his predecessors and had his own 
name engraved thereon^ — had been dead for 
many centuries and was forgotten when Ver- 
boten mounted the throne, and our own Teddy 
Roosevelt would not be born for many centuries 
yet to come; so the idea must have occurred 
to King Verboten spontaneously, as it were. 
Therefore he took counsel with himself, saying: 

"I shall now erect statues to myself. Dynas- 
ties change and wars rage, and folks grow fickle 
and tear down statues. None of that for your 
Uncle Dudley K. Verboten! No; this is what 
I shall do: On every available site in the length 
and breadth of this my realm I shall stick up 
my name; and, wherever possible, near to it I 
shall engrave or paint the names of my two 
favorite sons, Ausgang and Eingang — to the end 
that, come what may, we shall never be for- 
gotten in the land of our birth." 
[132] 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

And then he went and did it; and it was a 
thorough job — so thorough a job that, to this 
good year of our Lord you may still see the 
name of that wise king everywhere displayed in 
Germany — on railroad stations and in railroad 
trains ; on castle walls and dead walls and brewery 
walls, and the back fence of the Young Ladies' 
High School. And nearly always, too, you will 
find hard by, over doors and passageways, the 
names of his two sons, each accompanied or 
underscored by the heraldic emblem of their 
house — a barbed and feathered arrow pointing 
horizontally. 

And so it was that King Verboten lived 
happily ever after and in the fullness of time 
died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by his 
wives, his children and his courtiers; and all of 
them sorrowed greatly and wept, but the royal 
signpainter sorrowed most of all. 

I know that certain persons will contest the 
authenticity of this passage of history; they will 
claim Verboten means in our tongue Forbidden, 
and that Ausgang means Outgoing, and Eingang 
means Incoming — or, in other words. Exit and 
Entrance; but surely this could not be so. If 
so many things were forbidden, a man in Ger- 
many would be privileged only to die — and 
probably not that, unless he died according to 
a given formula; and certainly no human being 
with the possible exception of the comedian who 
used to work the revolving-door trick in Han- 
Ion's Fantasma, could go out of and come into 
[ 133 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



a place so often without getting dizzy in the 
head. No — the legend stands as stated. 

Even as it is, there are rules enough in Ger- 
many, rules to regulate all things and all persons. 
At first, to the stranger, this seems an irksome 
arrangement — this posting of rules and orders 
and directions and warnings everywhere — but 
he finds that everyone, be he high or low, must 
obey or go to jail; there are no exceptions and 
no evasions; so that what is a duty on all is a 
burden on none. 

Take the trains, for example. Pretty much 
all over the Continent the railroads are state- 
owned and state-run, but only in Germany are 
they properly run. True, there are so many 
uniformed officials aboard a German train that 
frequently there is barely room for the paying 
travelers to squeeze in ; but the cars are sanitary 
and the schedule is accurately maintained, and 
the attendants are honest and polite and cleanly 
of person — wherein lies another point of dis- 
similarity between them and those scurvy, 
musty, fusty brigands who are found manag- 
ing and operating trains in certain nearby 
countries. 

I remember a cup of coffee I had while going 
from Paris to Berlin. It was made expressly 
for me by an invalided commander-in-chief of 
the artillery corps of the imperial army — so I 
judged him to be by his costume, air and general 
deportment — who was in charge of our carriage 
and also of the small kitchen at the far end of it. 
[134] 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

He came into our compartment and bowed and 
clicked his heels together and saluted, and 
wanted to know whether I would take coffee. 
Recklessly I said I would. He filled in several 
blanks of a printed form, and went and cooked 
the coffee and brought it back, pausing at in- 
tervals as he came along to fill in other blanks. 
Would I take cream in my coffee .^^ I would; so 
he filled in a couple of blanks. Would I take 
sugar .f* I said I would take two lumps. He put 
in two lumps and filled in another blank. 

I really prefer my coffee with three lumps in 
it; but I noticed that his printed form was now 
completely filled in, and I hated to call for a 
third lump and put him to the trouble of starting 
his literary labors all over again. Besides, by 
that time the coffee would be cold. So I took 
it as it was — with two lumps only — and it was 
pretty fair coffee for European coffee. It tasted 
slightly of the red tape and the chicory, but it 
was neatly prepared and promptly served. 

And so, over historic streams no larger than 
creeks would be in America, and by castles and 
cabbages and kings and cows, we came to Ber- 
lin; and after some of the other Continental 
cities Berlin seemed a mighty restful spot to be 
in, and a good one to tarry in awhile. It has 
few historical associations, has Berlin, but we 
were loaded to the gills with historical associa- 
tions by now. It does not excel greatly in Old 
Masters, but we had already gazed with a 
languid eye upon several million Old Masters 
[135] 



EUROPE REVISED 



of all ages, including many very young ones. 
It has no ancient monuments and tombs either, 
which is a blessing. Most of the statuary 
in Berlin is new and shiny and provided with 
all the modern conveniences — the present kaiser 
attended competently to that detail. Wherever, 
in his capital, there was space for a statue he 
has stuck up one in memory of a member of his 
own dynasty, beginning with a statue apiece for 
such earlier rulers as Otho the Oboe-Player, and 
Joachim, surnamed the Half-a-Ton — let some 
one correct me if I have the names wrong — and 
finishing up with forty or fifty for himself. That 
is, there were forty or fifty of him when I was 
there. There are probably more now. 

In its essentials Berlin suggests a progressive 
American city, with Teutonic trimmings. Con- 
ceive a bit of New York, a good deal of Chicago, 
a scrap of Denver, a slice of Hoboken, and a 
whole lot of Milwaukee; conceive this combina- 
tion as being scoured every day until it shines; 
conceive it as beautifully though somewhat pro- 
fusely governed, and laid out with magnificent 
drives, and dotted with big, handsome public 
buildings, and full of reasonably honest and 
more than reasonably kindly people — and you 
have Berlin. 

It was in Berlin that I picked up the most 
unique art treasure I found anywhere on my 
travels — a picture of the composer Verdi that 
looked exactly like Uncle Joe Cannon, without 
the cigar; whereas Uncle Joe Cannon does not 
[136] 



THENCE ON TO VERBOTENLAND 

look a thing in the world like Verdi, and prob- 
ably wouldn't if he could. 

I have always regretted that our route through 
the German Empire took us across the land of 
the Hessians after dark, for I wanted to see 
those people. You will recollect that when 
George the Third, of England, first put into 
actual use the doctrine of Hands Across the Sea 
he used the Hessians. 

They were hired hands. 



137] 



CHAPTER VIII 
A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 



IT was at a small dinner party in a home 
out in Passy — which is to Paris what Flat- 
bush is to Brooklyn— that the event here- 
inafter set forth came to pass. Our host 
was an American who had lived abroad a good 
many years; and his wife, our hostess, was a 
French woman as charming as she was pretty 
and as pretty as she could be. 

The dinner was going along famously. We 
had hors-d'oeuvres, the soup and the hare — all 
very tasty to look on and very soothing to the 
palate. Then came the fowl, roasted, of course — 
the roast fowl is the national bird of France — and 
along with the fowl something exceedingly appe- 
tizing in the way of hearts of lettuce garnished 
with breasts of hothouse tomatoes cut on the bias. 
When we were through with this the servants 
removed the debris and brought us hot plates. 
Then, with the air of one conferring a real treat 
on us, the butler bore around a tureen arrange- 
ment full of smoking-hot string-beans. When 
[ 138] 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

it came my turn I helped myself — copiously — 
and waited for what was to go with the beans. 
A pause ensued — to my imagination an embar- 
rassed pause. Seeking a cue I glanced down the 
table and back again. There did not appear to 
be anything to go with the beans. The butler 
was standing at ease behind his master's chair — 
ease for a butler, I mean — and the other guests, 
it seemed to me, were waiting and watching. 
To myself I said: 

"Well, sir, that butler certainly has made a 
J. Henry Fox Pass of himself this trip! Here, 
just when this dinner was getting to be one of 
the notable successes of the present century, he 
has to go and derange the whole running sched- 
ule by serving the salad when he should have 
served the beans, and the beans when he should 
have served the salad. It's a sickening situa- 
tion; but if I can save it I'll do it. I'll be well 
bred if it takes a leg!" 

So, wearing the manner of one who has been 
accustomed all his life to finishing off his dinner 
with a mess of string-beans, I used my putting- 
iron ; and from the edge of the fair green I holed 
out in three. My last stroke was a dandy, if 
I do say it myself. The others were game too 
— I could see that. They were eating beans as 
though beans were particularly what they had 
come for. Out of the tail of my eye I glanced 
at our hostess, sitting next to me on the left. 
She was placid, calm, perfectly easy. Again 
addressing myself mentally I said: 
[139] 



EUROPE REVISED 



"There's a thoroughbred for you! You take 
a woman who got prosperous suddenly and is 
still acutely suffering from nervous culture, and 
if such a shipwreck had occurred at her dinner 
table she'd be utterly prostrated by now — she'd 
be down and out — and we'd all be standing 
back to give her air; but when they're born in 
the purple it shows in these big emergencies. 
Look at this woman now— not a ripple on the 
surface — balmy as a summer evening! But in 
about one hour from now, Central European 
time, I can see her accepting that fool but- 
ler's resignation before he's had time to offer 
it!" 

After the beans had been cleared off the right- 
of-way we had the dessert and the cheese and 
the coffee and the rest of it. And, as we used 
to say in the society column down home when 
the wife of the largest advertiser was entertain- 
ing, "at a suitable hour those present dispersed 
to their homes, one and all voting the affair to 
have been one of the most enjoyable occasions 
among like events of the season." We all knew 
our manners— we had proved that. 

Personally I was very proud of myself for 
having carried the thing off so well; but after 
I had survived a few tables d'hote in France and 
a few more in Austria and a great many in Italy, 
where they do not have anything at the hotels 
except tables d'hote, I did not feel quite so 
proud. For at this writing in those parts the 
slender, sylphlike string-bean is not playing a 
[ 140] 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

minor part, as with us. He has the best spot 
on the evening bill — he is a.headliner. So is 
the cauliflower; so is the Brussels sprout; so is 
any vegetable whose function among our own 
people is largely scenic. 

Therefore I treasured the memory of this in- 
cident and brought it back with me; and I tell 
it here at some length of detail because I know 
how grateful my countrywomen will be to get 
hold of it — I know how grateful they always are 
when they learn about a new gastronomical 
wrinkle. Mind you, I am not saying that the 
notion is an absolute novelty here. For all I 
know to the contrary, prominent hostesses along 
the Gold Coast of the United States — Bar Har- 
bor to Palm Beach inclusive — may have been 
serving one lone vegetable as a separate course 
for years and years ; but I feel sure that through- 
out the interior the disclosure will come as a 
pleasant surprise. 

The directions for executing this coup are 
simple and all the deadlier because they are so 
simple. The main thing is to invite your chief 
opponent as a smart entertainer; you know the 
one I mean:zr-the woman v/ho scored such a dis- 
tinct social triumph in the season of 1912-13 by 
being the first woman in town to serve tomato 
bisque with whipped cream on it. Have her 
there by all means. Go ahead with your dinner 
as though naught sensational and revolutionary 
were about to happen. Give them in proper 
turn the oysters, the fish, the entree, the bird, 
[141] 



EUROPE REVISED 



the salad. And then, all by itself, alone and 
unafraid, bring on a dab of string-beans. 

Wait until you see the whites of their eyes, and 
aim and fire at will. Settle back then, until the 
first hushed shock has somewhat abated — until 
your dazed and suffering rival is glaring about 
in a well-bred but flustered manner, looking for 
something to go with the beans. Hold her eye 
while you smile a smile that is compounded of 
equal parts — superior wisdom, and gentle con- 
tempt for her ignorance — and then slowly, de- 
liberately, dip a fork into the beans on your 
plate and go to it. 

Believe me, it cannot lose. Before breakfast 
time the next morning every woman who was 
at that dinner will either be sending out invita- 
tions for a dinner of her own and ordering beans, 
or she will be calling up her nearest and best 
friend on the telephone to spread the tidings. 
I figure that the intense social excitement oc- 
casioned in this country a few years ago by the 
introduction of Russian salad dressing will be 
as nothing in comparison. 

This stunt of serving the vegetable as a sepa- 
rate course was one of the things I learned about 
food during our Sittings across Europe, but it 
was not the only thing I learned — by a long shot 
it was not. For example I learned this — and I 
do not care what anybody else may say to the 
contrary either — that here in America we have 
better food and more different kinds of food, 
and food better cooked and better served than 
[ 142] 







ON THE NEARER BANK WAS A VILLAGE I^OPULATED BY SHORT PEOPLE AND LONG DOGS 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

the effete monarchies of the Old World ever 
dreamed of. And, quality and variety consid- 
ered, it costs less here, bite for bite, than it 
costs there. 

Food in Germany is cheaper than anywhere 
else almost, I reckon; and, selected with care 
and discrimination, a German dinner is an ex- 
cellently good dinner. Certain dishes in Eng- 
land — and they are very certain, for you get 
them at every meal — are good, too, and not 
overly expensive. There are some distinctive 
Austrian dishes that are not without their at- 
tractions either. Speaking by and large, how- 
ever, I venture the assertion that, taking any 
first-rate restaurant in any of the larger Ameri- 
can cities and balancing it off against any es- 
tablishment of like standing in Europe, the 
American restaurant wins on cuisine, service, 
price, flavor and attractiveness. 

Centuries of careful and constant press- 
agenting have given French cookery much of 
its present fame. The same crafty processes of 
publicity, continued through a period of eight 
or nine hundred years, have endowed the 
European scenic effects with a glamour and an 
impressiveness that really are not there, if you 
can but forget the advertising and consider the 
proposition on its merits. 

Take their rivers now — their historic rivers, 

if you please. You are traveling — heaven help 

you — on a Continental train. Between spells of 

having your ticket punched or torn apart, or 

[145] 



EUROPE REVISED 



otherwise mutilated; and getting out at the bor- 
der to see your trunks ceremoniously and sol- 
emnly unloaded and unlocked, and then as cere- 
moniously relocked and reloaded after you have 
conferred largess on everybody connected with 
the train, the customs regulations being mainly 
devised for the purpose of collecting not tariff 
but tips — between these periods, which consti- 
tute so important a feature of Continental travel 
— you come, let us say, to a stream. 

It is a puny stream, as we are accustomed to 
measure streams, boxed in by stone walls and 
regulated by stone dams, and frequently it is 
mud-colored and, more frequently still, runs be- 
tween muddy banks. In the West it would 
probably not even be dignified with a regular 
name, and in the East it would be of so little 
importance that the local congressman would 
not ask an annual appropriation of more than 
half a million dollars for the purposes of dredg- 
ing, deepening and diking it. I But even as you 
cross it you learn that it is the Tiber or the 
Arno, the Elbe or the Po; and, such is the force 
of precept and example, you immediately get 
all excited and worked up over it. 

English rivers are beautiful enough in a re- 
strained, well-managed, landscape-gardened sort 
of way; but Americans do not enthuse over an 
English river because of what it is in itself, but 
because it happens to be the Thames or the 
Avon — because of the distinguished characters 
in history whose names are associated with it. 
[ 146] 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

Hades gets much of its reputation the same way. 

I think of one experience I had while touring 
through what we had learned to call the Dachs- 
hund District. Our route led us alongside a 
most inconsequential-looking little river. Its 
contents seemed a trifle too liquid for mud and 
a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank 
was a small village populated by short people 
and long dogs. Out in midstream, making poor 
headway against the semi-gelid current, was a 
little flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing 
violently and kicking up a lather of lacy spray 
with its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind 
you of a very warm small lady fanning herself 
with a very large gauze fan, and only getting 
hotter at the job. 

In America that stream would have been 
known as Mink Creek or Cassidy's Run, or by 
some equally poetic title; but when I found out 
it was the Danube — no less — I had a distinct 
thrill. On closer examination I discovered it to 
be a counterfeit thrill; but nevertheless, I had it. 

What applies in the main to the scenery ap- 
plies in the main to the food. France has the 
reputation of breeding the best cooks in the 
world — and maybe she does; but when you are 
calling in France you find most of them out. 
They have emigrated to America, where a 
French chef gets more money in one year for exer- 
cising his art — and gets it easier — than he could 
get in ten years at home — and is given better in- 
gredients to cook with than he ever had at home. 

r 147 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



The hotel in Paris at which we stopped served 
good enough meals, all of them centering, of 
course, round the inevitable poulet roti; but it 
took the staff an everlastingly long time to 
bring the food to you. If you grew reckless 
and ordered anything that was not on the bill it 
upset the entire establishment; and before they 
calmed down and relayed it in to you it was 
time for the next meal. Still, I must say we did 
not mind the waiting ; near at hand a fascinating 
spectacle was invariably on exhibition. 

At the next table sat an Italian countess. 
Anyhow they told me she was an Italian coun- 
tess, and she wore jewelry enough for a dozen 
countesses. Every time I beheld her, with a 
big emerald earring gleaming at either side of 
her head, I thought of a Lenox Avenue local in 
the New York Subway. However, it was not 
so much her jewelry that proved such a fasci- 
nating sight as it was her pleasing habit of fetch- 
ing out a gold-mounted toothpick and exploring 
the most remote and intricate dental recesses 
of herself in full view of the entire dining room, 
meanwhile making a noise like somebody sicking 
a dog on. 

The Europeans have developed public tooth- 
picking beyond anything we know. They make 
an outdoor pastime and function of it, whereas 
we pursue this sport more or less privately. 
Over there, a toothpick is a family heirloom and 
is handed down from one generation to another, 
and is operated in company ostentatiously. In 
[ 148 1 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

its use some Europeans are absolutely gifted. 
But then we beat the world at open-air gum- 
chewing — so I reckon the honors are about 
even. 

This particular hotel, in common with all 
other first-class hotels in Paris, was forgetful 
about setting forth on its menu the prices of its 
best dishes and its special dishes. I take it this 
arrangement was devised for the benefit of cur- 
rency-quilted Americans. A Frenchman asks 
the waiter the price of an unpriced dish and then 
orders something else; but the American, as 
a rule, is either too proud or too foolish to in- 
quire into these details. At home he is beset 
by a hideous fear that some waiter will think he 
is of a mercenary nature; and when he is abroad 
this trait in him is accentuated. So, in his care- 
free American way, he orders a portion of a dish 
of an unspecified value; whereupon the head 
waiter slips out to the office and ascertains by 
private inquiry how large a letter of credit the 
American is carrying with him, and comes back 
and charges him all the traffic will bear. 

As for the keeper of a fashionable cafe on a 
boulevard or in the Rue de la Paix — well, along- 
side of him the most rapacious restaurant pro- 
prietor on Broadway is a kindly, Christian soul 
who is in business for his health — and not feeling 
very healthy at that. When you dine at one of 
the swagger boulevard places the head waiter 
always comes, just before you have finished, 
and places a display of fresh fruit before you, 
[ 149] 



EUROPE REVISED 



with a winning smile and a bow and a gesture, 
which, taken together, would seem to indicate 
that he is extending the compliments of the 
season and that the fruit will be on the house; 
but never did one of the intriguing scoundrels 
deceive me. Somewhere, years before, I had 
read statistics on the cost of fresh fruit in a 
Paris restaurant, and so I had a care. The 
sight of a bunch of hothouse grapes alone was 
sufficient to throw me into a cold perspiration 
right there at the table; and as for South African 
peaches, I carefully walked around them, getting 
farther away all the time. A peach was just 
the same as a pesthouse to me, in Paris. 

Alas though! no one had warned me about 
French oysters, and once — just once — I ate 
some, which made two mistakes on my part, 
one financial and the other gustatory. They 
were not particularly flavorous oysters as we 
know oysters on this side of the ocean. The 
French oyster is a small, copper-tinted proposi- 
tion, and he tastes something like an indisposed 
mussel and something like a touch of bilious- 
ness; but he is sufficiently costly for all purposes. 
The cafe proprietor cherishes him so highly that 
he refuses to vulgarize him by printing the ask- 
ing price on the same menu. A person in 
France desirous of making a really ostentatious 
display of his affluence, on finding a pearl in an 
oyster, would swallow the pearl and wear the 
oyster on his shirtfront. That would stamp 
him as a person of wealth. 
[ 150] 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

However, I am not claiming that all French 
cookery is ultra-exorbitant in price or of exces- 
sively low grade. We had one of the surprises 
of our lives when, by direction of a friend who 
knew Paris, we went to a little obscure cafe that 
was off the tourist route and therefore — as yet 
— unspoiled and uncommercialized. This place 
was up a back street near one of the markets; 
a small and smellsome place it was, decorated 
most atrociously. In the front window, in close 
juxtaposition, were a platter of French snails 
and a platter of sticky confections full of dark 
spots. There was no mistaking the snails for 
anything except snails; but the other articles 
were either currant buns or plain buns that had 
been made in an unscreened kitchen. 

Within were marble-topped tables of the 
Louie-Quince period and stuffy wall-seats of 
faded, dusty red velvet; and a waiter in his 
shirtsleeves was wandering about with a sheaf 
of those long French loaves tucked under his 
arm like golf sticks, distributing his loaves among 
the diners. But somewhere in its mysterious 
and odorous depths that little bourgeois cafe har- 
bored an honest-to-goodness cook. He knew a 
few things about grilling a pig's knuckle — that 
worthy person. He could make the knuckle of 
a pig taste like the wing of an angel; and what 
he could do with a skillet, a pinch of herbs and 
a calf's sweetbread passed human understanding. 

Certain animals in Europe do have the most 
delicious diseases anyway — notably the calf and 
[ 151 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



the goose, particularly the goose of Strasburg, 
where the pdtS de foie gras comes from. The 
engorged liver of a Strasburg goose must be a 
source of joy to all — except its original owner! 

Several times we went back to the little 
restaurant round the corner from the market, 
and each time we had something good. The 
food we ate there helped to compensate for the 
terrific disillusionment awaiting us when we 
drove out of Paris to a typical roadside inn, to 
get some of that wonderful provincial cookery 
that through all our reading days we had been 
hearing about. You will doubtless recall the 
description, as so frequently and graphically 
dished up by the inspired writers of travelogue 
stuff — the picturesque, tumbledown place, where 
on a cloth of coarse linen — white like snow — old 
Marie, her wrinkled face abeam with hospitality 
and kindness, places the delicious omelet she 
has just made, and brings also the marvelous 
salad and the perfect fowl, and the steaming hot 
coffee fragrant as breezes from Araby the Blest, 
and the vin ordinaire that is even as honey and 
gold to the thirsty throat. You must know that 
passage. 5^ 

We went to see for ourselves. At a distance 
of half a day's automobile run from Paris we 
found an establishment answering to the plans 
and specifications. It was shoved jam-up 
against the road, as is the French custom; and 
it was surrounded by a high, broken wall, on 
which all manner of excrescences in the shape of 
[152 1 



.,;,i,.i .ili'lSUHh,, 




ACCORDING TO THE FRENCH VERSION OF THE STORT OF THE FLOOD 
ONLY TWO ANIMALS EMERGED FROM THE ARK 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

tiny dormers and misshapen little towers hung, 
like Texas ticks on the ears of a quarantined 
steer. Within the wall the numerous ruins that 
made up the inn were thrown together any 
fashion, some facing one way, some facing the 
other way, and some facing all ways at once; 
so that, for the housefly, so numerously en- 
countered on these premises, it was but a short 
trip and a merry one from the stable to the 
dining room and back again. 

Sure enough, old Marie was on the job. Not 
desiring to be unkind or unduly critical I shall 
merely state that as a cook old Marie was what 
we who have been in France and speak the lan- 
guage fluently would call la limite! The omelet 
she turned out for us was a thing that was very 
firm and durable, containing, I think, leather 
findings, with a sprinkling of chopped henbane 
on the top. The coffee was as feeble a counter- 
feit as chicory usually is when it is masquerading 
as coffee, and the vin ordinaire had less of the 
vin to it and more of the ordinaire than any we 
sampled elsewhere. 

Right here let me say this for the much- 
vaunted vin ordinaire of Europe: In the end 
it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an 
adder — not like the ordinary Egyptian adder, 
but like a patent adder in the office of a 
loan shark, which is the worst stinger of the 
whole adder family. If consumed with any de- 
gree of freedom it puts a downy coat on your 
tongue next morning that causes you to think 
[155 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



you inadvertently swallowed the pillow in your 
sleep. Good domestic wine costs as much in 
Europe as good domestic wine costs in America 
— possibly more than as much. 

The souffle potatoes of old Marie were not 
bad to look on, but I did not test them other- 
wise. Even in my own country I do not care 
to partake of souffle potatoes unless I know 
personally the person who blew them up. So 
at the conclusion of the repast we nibbled tenta- 
tively at the dessert, which was a pancake with 
jelly, done in the image of a medicated bandage 
but not so tasty as one. And then I paid the 
check, which was of august proportions, and we 
came sadly away, realizing that another happy 
dream of youth had been shattered to bits. 
Only the tablecloth had been as advertised. It 
was coarse, but white like snow — like snow 
three days old in Pittsburgh. 

Yet I was given to understand that was a 
typical rural French inn and fully up to the 
standards of such places; but if the manager of 
a roadhouse within half a day's ride of New 
York or Boston or Philadelphia served such food 
to his patrons, at such prices, the sheriff would 
have him inside of two months; and everybody 
would be glad of it too — except the sheriff. 
Also, no humane man in this country would ask 
a self-respecting cow to camp overnight in such 
outbuildings as abutted on the kitchen of this 
particular inn. 

I am not denying that we have in America 
[156] 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

some pretty bad country hotels, where good 
food is most barbarously mistreated and good 
beds are rare to find, but we admit our short- 
comings in this regard and we deplore them — 
we do not shellac them over with a glamour of 
bogus romance, with intent to deceive the for- 
eign visitor to our shores. We warn him in 
advance of what he may expect and urge him 
to carry his rations with him. 

It is almost unnecessary to add that old Marie 
gave us veal and poulet roti. According to the 
French version of the story of the Flood only 
two animals emerged from the Ark when the 
waters receded — one was an immature hen and 
the other was an adolescent calf. At every meal 
except breakfast — when they do not give you 
anything at all— the French give you veal and 
poulet roti. If at lunch you had the poulet roti 
first and afterward the veal, why, then at dinner 
they provide a pleasing variety by bringing on 
the veal first and the poulet roti afterward. 

The veal is invariably stringy and coated over 
with weird sauces, and the poulet never appears 
at the table in her recognizable members — such 
as wings and drumsticks — but is chopped up 
with a cleaver into cross sections, and strange- 
looking chunks of the wreckage are sent to you. 
Moreover they cook the chicken in such a way 
as to destroy its original taste, and the veal in 
such a way as to preserve its original taste, 
both being inexcusable errors. 

Nowhere in the larger Italian cities, except by 
[157] 



EUROPE REVISED 



the exercise of a most tremendous determina- 
tion, can you get any real Italian cooking or 
any real Italian dishes. At the hotels they 
feed you on a pale, sad table-d'hote imitation 
of French cooking, invariably buttressed with 
the everlasting veal and the eternal poulet roti. 
At the finish of a meal the waiter brings you, 
on one plate, two small withered apples and 
a bunch of fly-specked sour grapes; and, on 
another plate, the mortal remains of some ex- 
cessively deceased cheese wearing a tinfoil 
shroud and appropriately laid out in a small, 
white, coffin-shaped box. 

After this had happened to me several times 
I told the waiter with gentle irony that he might 
as well screw the lid back on the casket and pro- 
ceed with the obsequies. I told him I was not 
one of those morbid people who love to look on 
the faces of the strange dead. The funeral 
could not get under way too soon to suit me. 
It seemed to me that this funeral was already 
several days overdue. That was what I told 
him. 

In my travels the best place I ever found to 
get Italian dishes was a basement restaurant 
under an old brownstone house on Forty-seventh 
Street, in New York. There you might find the 
typical dishes of Italy — I defy you to find them 
in Italy without a search-warrant. However, 
while in Italy the tourist may derive much en- 
tertainment and instruction from a careful 
study of table manners. 

[158] 



A TALE OF A STRING-BEAN 

In our own land we produce some reasonably 
boisterous trenchermen, and some tolerably 
careless ones too. Several among us have yet 
to learn how to eat corn on the ear and at the 
same time avoid corn in the ear. A dish of 
asparagus has been known to develop fine 
acoustic properties, and in certain quarters 
there is a crying need for a sound-proof soup; 
but even so, and admitting these things as 
facts, we are but mere beginners in this line 
when compared with our European brethren. 

In the caskets of memory I shall ever cherish 
the picture of a particularly hairy gentleman, 
apparently of Russian extraction, who patron- 
ized our hotel in Venice one evening. He was 
what you might call a human hazard — a golf- 
player would probably have thought of him in 
that connection. He was eating flour dump- 
lings, using his knife for a niblick all the way 
round; and he lost every other shot in a con- 
cealed bunker on the edge of the rough; and he 
could make more noise sucking his teeth than 
some people could make playing on a fife. 

There is a popular belief to the effect that 
the Neapolitan eats his spaghetti by a deft proc- 
ess of wrapping thirty or forty inches round the 
tines of his fork and then lifting it inboard, an 
ell at a time. This is not correct. The true 
Neapolitan does not eat his spaghetti at all — 
he inhales it. He gathers up a loose strand and 
starts it down his throat. He then respires 
from the diaphragm, and like a troupe of trained 
[159] 



EUROPE REVISED 



angleworms that entire mass of spaghetti un- 
coils itself, gets up off the plate and disappears 
inside him — en masse, as it were — and making 
him look like a man who is chinning himself 
over a set of bead portieres. I fear we in 
America will never learn to siphon our spaghetti 
into us thus. It takes a nation that has prac- 
ticed deep breathing for centuries. 



[160 1 



CHAPTER IX 
THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 



UNDER the head of European disillu- 
sionments I would rate, along with 
the vin ordinaire of the French vine- 
yard and inkworks, the barmaid of 
Britain. From what you have heard on this 
subject you confidently expect the British bar- 
maid to be buxom, blond, blooming, billowy, 
buoyant — but especially blond. On the con- 
trary she is generally brunette, frequently mid- 
dle-aged, in appearance often fair-to-middling 
homely, and in manner nearly always abounding 
with a stiffness and hauteur that would do credit 
to a belted earl, if the belting had just taken 
place and the earl was still groggy from the 
effects of it. Also, she has the notion of personal 
adornment that is common in more than one 
social stratum of women in England. If she has 
a large, firm, solid mound of false hair over- 
hanging her brow like an impending landslide, 
and at least three jingly bracelets on each wrist, 
[ 161 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



she considers herself well dressed, no matter what 
else she may or may not be wearing. 

Often this lady is found presiding over an 
American bar, which is an institution now com- 
monly met with in all parts of London. The 
American bar of London differs from the ordi- 
nary English bar of London in two respects, 
namely — there is an American flag draped over 
the mirror, and it is a place where they sell all 
the English drinks and are just out of all the 
American ones. If you ask for a Bronx the 
barmaid tells you they do not carry seafood in 
stock and advises you to apply at the fish- 
mongers' — second turning to the right, sir, and 
then over the way, sir— just before you come 
to the bottom of the road, sir. If you ask for 
a Mamie Taylor she gets it confused in her 
mind with a Sally Lunn and sends out for 
yeastcake and a cookbook; and while you are 
waiting she will give you a genuine Yankee 
drink, such as a brandy and soda — or she will 
suggest that you smoke something and take a 
look at the evening paper. 

If you do smoke something, beware — oh, be- 
ware ! — of the native English cigar. When rolled 
between the fingers it gives off a dry, rustling 
sound similar to a shuck mattress. For smoking 
purposes it is also open to the same criticisms 
that a shuck mattress is. The flames smolder 
in the walls and then burst through in unexpected 
places, and the smoke sucks up the airshaft and 
mushrooms on your top floor; then the deadly 
[ 162 ] 



THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 

back draft comes and the fatal firedamp, and 
when the firemen arrive you are a ruined tene- 
ment. Except the German, the French, the 
Belgian, the Austrian and the Italian cigar, the 
English cigar is the worst cigar I ever saw. I 
did not go to Spain; they tell me, though, the 
Spanish cigar has the high qualifications of bad- 
ness. Spanish cigars are not really cigars at all, 
I hear; they fall into the classification of defec- 
tive flues. 

Likewise beware of the alleged American 
cocktail occasionally dispensed, with an air of 
pride and accomplished triumph, by the British 
barmaid of an American bar. If for purposes 
of experiment and research you feel that you 
must take one, order with it, instead of the 
customary olive or cherry, a nice boiled vegeta- 
ble marrow. The advantage to be derived from 
this is that the vegetable marrow takes away 
the taste of anything else and does not have any 
taste of its own. 

In the eating line the Englishman depends on 
the staples. He sticks to the old standby s. 
What was good enough for his fathers is good 
enough for him — in some cases almost too good. 
Monotony of victuals does not distress him. He 
likes his food to be humdrum; the humdrummer 
the better. 

Speaking with regard to the whole country, 

I am sure we have better beef uniformly in 

America than in England; but there is at least 

one restaurant on the Strand where the roast 

[163] 



EUROPE REVISED 



beef is just a little bit superior to any other 
roast beef on earth. English mutton is incom- 
parable, too, and English breakfast bacon is a 
joy forever. But it never seems to occur to an 
Englishman to vary his diet. I submit samples 
of the daily menu: 

Luncheon Dinner 

Roast Beef Boiled Mutton 

Boiled Mutton Roast Beef 

Potatoes I g^;,^^ Cabbage U^-j^j 



Cabbage \ Potatoes 

Jam Tart Custard 

Custard Jam Tart 

Cheese Coffee 

Coffee Cheese 

TEA! 

I know now why an Englishman dresses for 
dinner — it enables him to distinguish dinner 
from lunch. 

His regular desserts are worthy of a line. The 
jam tart is a death-mask that went wrong and 
in consequence became morose and heavy of 
spirit, and the custard is a soft-boiled egg which 
started out in life to be a soft-boiled egg and 
at the last moment — when it was too late — 
changed its mind and tried to be something else. 

In the City, where lunching places abound, 
the steamer works overtime and the stewpan 
never rests. There is one place, well advertised 
to American visitors, where they make a specialty 
of their beefsteak-and-kidney pudding. This is 

r 164 1 



THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 

a gummy concoction containing steak, kidney, 
mushroom, oyster, lark — and sometimes W and 
Y. Doctor Johnson is said to have been very 
fond of it; this, if true, accounts for the doctor's 
disposition. A helping of it weighs two pounds 
before you eat it and ten pounds afterward. 
The kidney is its predominating influence. The 
favorite flower of the English is not the prim- 
rose. It is the kidney. Wherever you go, 
among the restaurants, there is always some- 
body operating on a steamed flour dumpling for 
kidney trouble. 

The lower orders are much addicted to a dish 
known — if I remember the name aright — by the 
euphonious title of Toad in the Hole. Toad in 
the Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant 
sheep's kidney entombed in an excavated re- 
treat at the heart of a large and powerful onion, 
and then cooked in a slow and painful manner, 
so that the onion and the kidney may swap per- 
fumes and flavors. These people do not use 
this combination for a weapon or for a disin- 
fectant, or for anything else for which it is 
naturally purposed; they actually go so far as 
to eat it. You pass a cabmen's lunchroom and 
get a whiff of a freshly opened Toad in the Hole 
— and you imagine it is the German invasion 
starting and wonder why they are not removing 
the women and children to a place of safety. 
All England smells like something boiling, just 
as all France smells like something that needs 
boiling. 

[ 165 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



Seemingly the only Londoners who enjoy any 
extensive variety in their provender are the 
slum-dwellers. Out Whitechapel-way the estab- 
lishment of a tripe dresser and draper is a sight 
wondrous to behold, and will almost instantly 
eradicate the strongest appetite; but it is not 
to be compared with an East End meatshop, 
where there are skinned sheep faces on slabs, 
and various vital organs of various animals dis- 
posed about in clumps and clusters. I was re- 
minded of one of those Fourteenth Street mu- 
seums of anatomy — tickets ten cents each ; boys 
under fourteen not admitted. The East End 
butcher is not only a thrifty but an inquiring 
soul. Until I viewed his shop I had no idea that 
a sheep could be so untidy inside; and as for a 
cow — he finds things in a cow she didn't know 
she had. 

Breakfast is the meal at which the English- 
man rather excels; in fact England is the only 
country in Europe where the natives have the 
faintest conception of what a regular breakfast 
is, or should be. Moreover, it is now possible 
in certain London hotels for an American to get 
hot bread and ice-water at breakfast, though 
the English round about look on with undis- 
guised horror as he consumes them, and the 
manager only hopes that he will have the good 
taste not to die on the premises. 

It is true that, in lieu of the fresh fruit an 
American prefers, the waiter brings at least 
three kinds of particularly sticky marmalade 
[166] 



THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 

and, in accordance with a custom that dates 
back to the time of the Druids, spangles the 
breakfast cloth over with a large number of 
empty saucers and plates, which fulfill no 
earthly purpose except to keep getting in the 
way. The English breakfast bacon, however, 
is a most worthy article, and the broiled kipper is 
juicy and plump, and does not resemble a dried 
autumn leaf, as oui kipper often does. And the 
fried sole, on which the Englishman banks his 
breakfast hopes, invariably repays one for one's 
undivided attention. The English boast of 
their fish; but, excusing the kipper, they have 
but three of note — the turbot, the plaice and 
the sole. And the turbot tastes like turbot, and 
the plaice tastes like fish; but the sole, when 
fried, is most appetizing. 

I have been present when the English goose- 
berry and the English strawberry were very 
highly spoken of, too, but with me this is merely 
hearsay evidence; we reached England too late 
for berries. Happily, though, we came in good 
season for the green filbert, which is gathered 
in the fall of the year, being known then as the 
Kentish cobnut. The Kentish cob beats any 
nut we have except the paper-shell pecan. The 
English postage stamp is also much tastier than 
ours. The space for licking is no larger, if as 
large — but the flavor lasts. 

As I said before, the Englishman has no great 
variety of things to eat, but he is always eating 
them; and when he is not eating them he is 
[169] 



EUROPE REVISED 



swigging tea. Yet in these regards the German 
excels him. The Enghshman gains a lap at 
breakfast; but after that first hour the German 
leaves him, hopelessly distanced, far in the rear. 
It is due to his talents in this respect that the 
average Berliner has a double chin running all 
the way round, and four rolls of fat on the back 
of his neck, all closely clipped and shaved, so 
as to bring out their full beauty and symmetry, 
and a figure that makes him look as though an 
earthquake had shaken loose everything on the 
top floor and it all fell through into his dining 
room. 

Your true Berliner eats his regular daily meals 
— four in number and all large ones; and in be- 
tween times he now and then gathers a bite. 
For instance, about ten o'clock in the morning 
he knocks off for an hour and has a few cups 
of hard-boiled coffee and some sweet, sticky 
pastry with whipped cream on it. Then about 
four in the afternoon he browses a bit, just to 
keep up his appetite for dinner. This, though, 
is but a snack — say, a school of Bismarck herring 
and a kraut pie, some more coffee and more 
cake, and one thing and another — merely a pre- 
liminary to the real food, which will be coming 
along a little later on. Between acts at the 
theater he excuses himself and goes out and 
prepares his stomach for supper, which will fol- 
low at eleven, by drinking two or three steins 
of thick Munich beer, and nibbling on such 
small tidbits as a rosary of German sausage or 
[170] 



THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 

the upper half of a raw WestphaHa ham. There 
are forty-seven distinct and separate varieties 
of German sausage and three of them are edible; 
but the Westphalia ham, in my judgment, is 
greatly overrated. It is pronounced Westf all- 
ure with the accent on the last part, where it 
belongs. 

In Germany, however, there is a pheasant 
agreeably smothered in young cabbage which is 
delicious and in season plentiful. The only 
drawback to complete enjoyment of this dish 
is that the grasping and avaricious German 
restaurant keeper has the confounded nerve to 
charge you, in our money, forty cents for a 
whole pheasant and half a peck of cabbage — 
say, enough to furnish a full meal for two toler- 
ably hungry adults and a growing child. 

The Germans like to eat and they love a 
hearty eater. There should never be any trouble 
about getting a suitable person to serve us at 
the Kaiser's court if the Administration at 
Washington will but harken to the voice of ex- 
perience. To the Germans the late Doctor 
Tanner would have been a distinct disappoint- 
ment in an ambassadorial capacity; but there 
was a man who used to live in my congressional 
district who could qualify in a holy minute if 
he were still alive. He was one of Nature's 
noblemen, untutored but naturally gifted, and 
his name was John Wesley Bass. He was the 
champion eater of the world, specializing partic- 
ularly in eggs on the shell, and cove oysters out 
[1711 



EUROPE REVISED 



of the can, with pepper sauce on them, and soda 
crackers on the side. 

I regret to be compelled to state, however, 
that John Wesley is no more. At one of our 
McCracken County annual fairs, a few years 
back, he succumbed to overambition coupled 
with a mistake in judgment. After he had es- 
tablished a new world's record by eating at one 
sitting five dozen raw eggs he rashly rode on the 
steam merry-go-round. At the end of the first 
quarter of an hour he fainted and fell off a 
spotted wooden horse and never spoke again, but 
passed away soon after being removed to his 
home in an unconscious condition. I have for- 
gotten what the verdict of the coroner's jury 
was— the attending physician gave it some fancy 
Latin name — but among laymen the general 
judgment was that our fellow townsman had 
just naturally been scrambled to death. It was 
a pity, too — the German people would have 
cared for John Wesley as an ambassador. He 
would have eaten his way right into their 
affections. 

We have the word of history for it that Vienna 
was originally settled by the Celts, but you 
would hardly notice it now. On first impres- 
sions you would say that about Vienna there 
was a noticeable suggestion — a perceptible trace 
— of the Teutonic; and this applies to the Aus- 
trian food in the main. I remember a kind of 
Wiener-schnitzel, breaded, that I had in Vienna; 
in fact for the moment I do not seem to recall 
[ 172] 



THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 

much else about Vienna. Life there was just 
one Wiener-schnitzel after another. 

In order to spread sweetness and Hght, and 
to the end, furthermore, that the ignorant peo- 
ple across the salted seas might know something 
of a land of real food and much food, and plenty 
of it and plenty of variety to it, I would that 
I might bring an expedition of Europeans to 
America and personally conduct it up and 
down our continent and back and forth cross- 
wise of it. 

And if I had the money of a Carnegie or a 
Rockefeller I would do it, too, for it would be 
a greater act of charity than building public 
libraries or endowing public baths. I would 
include in my party a few delegates from Eng- 
land, where every day is All Soles' Day; and a 
few sausage-surfeited Teutons; and some Gauls, 
wearied and worn by the deadly poulet routine 
of their daily life, and a scattering representa- 
tion from all the other countries over there. 

In especial I would direct the Englishman's 
attention to the broiled pompano of New Or- 
leans; the kingfish filet of New York; the sand- 
dab of Los Angeles; the Boston scrod of the 
Massachusetts coast; and that noblest of all 
pan fish — the fried crappie of Southern Indiana. 
To these and to many another delectable fishling 
would I introduce the poor fellow; and to him 
and his fellows I fain would offer a dozen apiece 
of Smith Island oysters on the half shell. 

And I would take all of them to New England 
[ 173 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



for baked beans and brown bread and codfish 
balls; but on the way we would visit the shores 
of Long Island for a kind of soft clam which 
first is steamed and then is esteemed. At Ports- 
mouth, New Hampshire, they should each have 
a broiled lobster measuring thirty inches from 
tip to tip, fresh caught out of the Piscataqua 
River. 

Vermont should come to them in hospitality 
and in pity, offering buckwheat cakes and maple 
sirup. But Rhode Island would bring a genuine 
Yankee blueberry pie and directions for the 
proper consumption of it, namely — discarding 
knife and fork, to raise a crusty, dripping wedge 
of blueberry pie in your hand to your mouth, 
and to take a first bite, which instantly changes 
the ground-floor plan of that pie from a triangle 
to a crescent; and then to take a second bite, 
and then to lick your fingers — and then there 
isn't any more pie. 

Down in Kentucky I should engage Mandy 
Berry, colored, to fry for them some spring 
chickens and make for them a few pones of 
real cornbread. In Creole Louisiana they should 
sample crawfish gumbo; and in Georgia they 
should have 'possum baked with sweet potatoes ; 
and in Tidewater Maryland, terrapin and can- 
vasback; and in Illinois, young gray squirrels on 
toast; and in South Carolina, boiled rice with 
black-eyed peas; and in Colorado, cantaloupes; 
and in Kansas, young sweet corn; and in Vir- 
ginia, country hams, not cured with chemicals 
[174 1 



THE DEADLY POULET ROUTINE 

but with hickory smoke and loving hands; and 
in Tennessee, jowl and greens. 

And elsewhere they should have their whack- 
ing fill of prairie hen and suckling pig and bar- 
becued shote, and sure-enough beefsteak, and 
goobers hot from the parching box; and scrapple, 
and yams roasted in hot wood-ashes; and hot 
biscuit and waffles and Parker House rolls — 
and the thousand and one other good things 
that may be found in this our country, and 
which are distinctively and uniquely of this 
country. 

Finally I would bring them back by way of 
Richmond, and there I would give them each 
an eggnog compounded with fresh cream and 
made according to a recipe older than the Rev- 
olution. If I had my way about it no living 
creature should be denied the right to bury his 
face in a brimming tumbler of that eggnog — 
except a man with a drooping red mustache. 

By the time those gorged and converted pil- 
grims touched the Eastern seaboard again any 
one of them, if he caught fire, would burn for 
about four days with a clear blue flame, and 
many valuable packing-house by-products could 
be gleaned from his ruins. It would bind us all, 
foreigner and native alike, in closer ties of love 
and confidence, and it would turn the tide of 
travel westward from Europe, instead of east- 
ward from America. 

Let's do it sometime — and appoint me con- 
ductor of the expedition! 
[175] 



CHAPTER X 

MODES OF THE MOMENT; A FASHION 
ARTICLE 



AMONG the furbearing races the adult 
male of the French species -easily ex- 
cels. Some fine peltries are to be seen 
in Italy, and there is a type of farming 
Englishman who wears a stiff set of burnishers 
projecting out round his face in a circular effect 
suggestive of a halo that has slipped down. In 
connection with whiskers I have heard the 
Russians highly commended. They tell me 
that, from a distance, it is very hard to distin- 
guish a muzhik from a bosky dell, whereas a 
grand duke nearly always reminds one of some- 
thing tasty and luxuriant in the line of orna- 
mental arborwork. The German military man 
specializes in mustaches, preference being given 
to the Texas longhorn mustache, and the walrus 
and kitty-cat styles. A dehorned German officer 
is rarely found and a muley one is practically 
unknown. But the French lead all the world in 
whiskers — both the wildwood variety and the 
f 176 1 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



domesticated kind trained on a trellis. I men- 
tion this here^at the outset because no French- 
man is properly dressed unless he is whiskered 
also ; such details properly appertain to a chapter 
on European dress. 

Probably every freeborn American citizen has 
at some time in his life cherished the dream of 
going to England and buying himself an outfit 
of English clothes — just as every woman has 
had hopes of visiting Paris and stocking up with 
Parisian gowns on the spot where they were 
created, and where — so she assumes — they will 
naturally be cheaper than elsewhere. Those 
among us who no longer harbor these fancies are 
the men and women who have tried these ex- 
periments. 

After she has paid the tariff on them a woman 
is pained to note that her Paris gowns have cost 
her as much as they would cost her in the United 
States — so I have been told by women who have 
invested extensively in that direction. And 
though a man, by the passion of the moment, 
may be carried away to the extent of buying 
English clothes, he usually discovers on return- 
ing to his native land that they are not adapted 
to withstand the trying climatic conditions and 
the critical comments of press and public in this 
country. What was contemplated as a trium- 
phal reentrance becomes a footrace to the near- 
est ready-made clothing store. 

English clothes are not meant for Americans, 
but for Englishmen to wear: that is a great car- 
[ 177] 



EUROPE REVISED 



dinal truth which Americans would do well to 
ponder. Possibly you have heard that an Eng- 
lishman's clothes fit him with an air. They do 
so; they fit him with a lot of air around the collar 
and a great deal of air adjacent to the waistband 
and through the slack of the trousers ; frequently 
they fit him with such an air that he is entirely 
surrounded by space, as in the case of a vacuum 
bottle. Once there was a Briton whose overcoat 
collar hugged the back of his neck; so they knew 
by that he was no true Briton, but an impostor 
— and they put him out of the union. In brief, 
the kind of English clothes best suited for an 
American to wear is the kind Americans make. 

I knew these things in advance — or, anyway, 
I should have known them; nevertheless I felt 
our trip abroad would not be complete unless I 
brought back some London clothes. I took a 
look at the shop-windows and decided to pass 
up the ready-made things. The coat shirt ; the 
shaped sock; the collar that will fit the neckband 
of a shirt, and other common American com- 
modities, seemed to be practically unknown in 
London. 

The English dress shirt has such a dinky little 
bosom on it that by rights you cannot refer to it 
as a bosom at all; it comes nearer to being what 
women used to call a guimpe. Every show- 
window where I halted was jammed to the gun- 
wales with thick, fuzzy, woolen articles and in- 
flammatory plaid waistcoats, and articles in 
crash for tropical wear — even through the glass 
[ 178] 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



you could note each individual crash with dis- 
tinctness. The London shopkeeper adheres 
steadfastly to this arrangement. Into his 
window he puts everything he has in his shop 
except the customer. The customer is in the 
rear, with all avenues of escape expertly fenced 
off from him by the proprietor and the clerks; 
but the stock itself is in the show-window. 

There are just two department stores in Lon- 
don where, according to the American viewpoint, 
the windows are attractively dressed. .-One of 
these stores is owned by an American, and the 
other, I believe, is managed by an American. 
In Paris there are many shops that are veritable 
jewel-boxes for beauty and taste; but these are 
the small specialty shops, very expensive and 
highly perfumed. 

The Paris department stores are worse jum- 
bles even than the English department stores. 
When there is a special sale under way the bar- 
gain counters are rigged up on the sidewalks. 
There, in the open air, buyer and seller will 
chaffer and bicker, and wrangle and quarrel, and 
kiss and make up again — for all the world to see. 
43ne of the free sights of Paris is a frugal French- 
man, with his face extensively haired over, paw- 
ing like a Skye terrier through a heap of marked- 
down lingerie; picking out things for the female 
members of his household to wear — now testing 
some material with his tongue; now holding a 
most personal article up in the sunlight to ex- 
amine the fabric — while the wife stands humbly, 
[ 179 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



dumbly by, waiting for him to complete his 
selections. 

So far as London was concerned, I decided to 
deny myself any extensive orgy in haberdashery. 
From similar motives I did not invest in the 
lounge suit to which an Englishman is addicted. 
I doubted whether it would fit the lounge we 
have at home — though, with stretching, it might, 
at that. My choice finally fell on an English 
raincoat and a pair of those baggy knee breeches 
such as an Englishman wears when he goes to 
Scotland for the moor shooting, or to the 
National Gallery, or any other damp, misty, 
rheumatic place. 

I got the raincoat first. It was built to my 
measure; at least that was the understanding; 
but you give an English tailor an inch and he 
takes an ell. This particular tailor seemed to 
labor under the impression that I was going to 
use my raincoat for holding large public assem- 
blies or social gatherings in — nothing that I 
could say convinced him that I desired it for 
individual use; so he modeled it on a generous 
spreading design, big at the bottom and sloping 
up toward the top like a pagoda. Equipped with 
guy ropes and a centerpole it would make a 
first-rate marquee for a garden party — in case 
of bad weather the refreshments could be served 
under it; but as a raincoat I did not particularly 
fancy it. When I put it on I sort of reminded 
myself of a covered wagon. 

Nothing daunted by this I looked up the ad- 
[180] 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



dress of a sporting tailor in a side street off 
Regent Street, whose genius was reputed to 
find an artistic outlet in knee breeches. Before 
visiting his shop I disclosed my purpose to my 
traveling companion, an individual in whose 
judgment and good taste I have ordinarily every 
confidence, and who has a way of coming di- 
rectly to the meat of a subject. 

"What do you want with a pair of knee 
breeches?" inquired this person crisply. 

"Why — er — for general sporting occasions," 
I replied. 

"For instance, what occasions.'^" 

"For golfing," I said, "and for riding, you 
know. And if I should go West next year they 
would come in very handy for the shooting." 

"To begin with," said my companion, "you 
do not golf. The only extensive riding I have 
ever heard of your doing was on railway trains. 
And if these knee breeches you contemplate 
buying are anything like the knee breeches I 
have seen here in London, and if you should 
wear them out West among the impulsive West- 
ern people, there would undoubtedly be a good 
deal of shooting; but I doubt whether you would 
enjoy it — they might hit you!" 

" Look here ! " I said. "Every man in America 
who wears duck pants doesn't run a poultry 
farm. And the presence of a sailor hat in the 
summertime does not necessarily imply that the 
man under it owns a yacht. I cannot go back 
home to New York and face other and older 
[181] 



EUROPE REVISED 



members of the When-I-Was-in-London Club 
without some sartorial credentials to show for 
my trip. I am firmly committed to this under- 
taking. Do not seek to dissuade me, I beg of 
you. My mind is set on knee breeches and I 
shan't be happy until I get them." 

So saying I betook myself to the establish- 
ment of this sporting tailor in the side street off 
Regent Street; and there, without much diflS- 
culty, I formed the acquaintance of a salesman 
of suave and urbane manners. With his assist- 
ance I picked out a distinctive, not to say strik- 
ing, pattern in an effect of plaids. The goods, 
he said, were made of the wool of a Scotch 
sheep in the natural colors. They must have 
some pretty fancy-looking sheep in Scotland! 

This done, the salesman turned me over to a 
cutter, who took me to a small room where in- 
completed garments were hanging all about like 
the quartered carcasses of animals in a butcher 
shop. The cutter was a person who dropped 
his h's and then, catching himself, gathered 
them all up again and put them back in his 
speech — in the wrong places. He surveyed me 
extensively with a square and a measuring line, 
meantime taldng many notes, and told me to 
come back on the next day but one. 

On the day named and at the hour appointed 
I was back. He had the garments ready for me. 
As, with an air of pride, he elevated them for 
my inspection, they seemed commodious — in- 
deed, voluminous. I had told him, when making 
f 182 1 




ENGLISH CLOTHES ARE NOT MEANT FOR AMERICANS 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



them, to take all the latitude he needed; but it 
looked now as though he had got it confused in 
his mind with longitude. Those breeches ap- 
peared to be constructed for cargo rather than 
speed. 

With some internal misgivings I lowered my 
person into them while he held them in position, 
and when I had descended as far as I could go 
without entirely immuring myself, he buttoned 
the dewdabs at the knees; then he went round 
behind me and cinched them in abruptly, so 
that of a sudden they became quite snug at the 
waistline; the only trouble was that the waist- 
line had moved close up under my armpits, 
practically eliminating about a foot and a half 
of me that I had always theretofore regarded 
as indispensable to the general effect. Right in 
the middle of my back, up between my shoulder- 
blades there was a stiff, hard clump of some- 
thing that bored into my spine uncomfortably. 
I could feel it quite plainly — lumpy and rough. 

'"Ow's that, sir.f*" he cheerily asked me, over 
my shoulder; but it seemed to me there was a 
strained, nervous note in his voice. "A bit of 
all right — eh, sir.^^" 

"Well," I said, standing on tiptoe in an effort 
to see over the top, "you've certainly behaved 
very generously toward me — I'll say that much. 
Midships there appears to be about four or five 
yards of material I do not actually need in my 
business, being, as it happens, neither a harem 
favorite nor a professional sackracer. And they 
[185] 



EUROPE REVISED 



come up so high I'm afraid people will think 
the gallant coast-guards have got me in a life- 
buoy and are bringing me ashore through the 
surf." 

"You'll be wanting them a bit loose, sir, you 
know," he interjected, still snuggling close be- 
hind me. "All our gentlemen like them loose." 

"Oh, very well," I said; "perhaps these things 
are mere detailsT^ However, I would be under 
deep obligations to you if you'd change 'em from 
barkentine to schooner rig, and lower away this 
gaff-topsail which now sticks up under my chin, 
so that I can luff and_Come up in the wind with- 
out capsizing. And] say, what is that hard lump 
between my shoulders?" 

"Nothing at all, sir," he said hastily; and 
now I knew he was flurried. "I can fix that, 
sir — in a jiffy, sir." 

"Anyhow, please come round here in front 
where I can converse more freely with you on 
the subject," I said. I was becoming suspicious 
that all was not well with me back there where 
he was lingering. He came reluctantly, still 
half -embracing me with one arm. 

Petulantly I wrestled my form free, and in- 
stantly those breeches seemed to leap outward 
in all directions away from me. I grabbed for 
them, and barely injtime I got a grip on the 
yawning top hem. \Peering down the cavelike 
orifice that now confronted me I beheld two 
spectral white columns, and recognized them as 
my own legs/\ In the same instant, also, I real- 
I 186 ] 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 

ized what that hard clump against my spine 
was, because when he took his hand away the 
clump was gone. He had been standing back 
there with some eight or nine inches of super- 
fluous waistband bunched up in his fist. 

The situation was embarrassing, and it would 
have been still more embarrassing had I elected 
to go forth wearing my breeches in their then 
state, because, to avoid talk, he would have had 
to go along too, walking immediately behind me 
and holding up the slack. And such a spectacle, 
with me filling the tonneau and he back behind 
on the rumble, would have caused comment 
undoubtedly. 

That pantsmaker was up a stump ! He looked 
reproachfully at me, chidingly at the breeches 
and sternly at the tapemeasure — which he wore 
draped round his neck like a pet snake — as 
though he felt convinced one of us was at fault, 
but could not be sure which one. 

"I'm afraid, sir," he said, "that your figure 
is changing." 

"I guess you're right," I replied with a soft 
sigh. "As well as I can judge I'm not as tall 
as I was day before yesterday by at least eighteen 
inches. And I've mislaid my diaphragm some- 
where, haven't I?" 

"'Ave them off, please, sir," he said resignedly. 
"I'll 'ave to alter them to conform, sir. Come 
back to-morrow." 

I had them off and he altered them to con- 
form, and I went back on the morrow; in fact 
[ 187] 



EUROPE REVISED 



I went back so often that after a while I became 
really quite attached to the place. I felt almost 
like a member of the firm. Between calls from 
me the cutter worked on those breeches. He 
cut them up and he cut them down; he sheared 
the back away and shingled the front, and 
shifted the buttons to and fro. 

Still, even after all this, they were not what 
I should term an unqualified success. When I 
sat down in them they seemed to climb up on me 
so high, fore and aft, that I felt as short-waisted 
as a crush hat in a state of repose. And the only 
way I could get my hands into the hip pockets of 
those breeches was to take the breeches off first. 
As ear muffs they were fair but as hip pockets 
they were failures. Finally I told him to send 
my breeches, just as they were, to my hotel 
address — and I paid the bill. 

I brought them home with me. On the day 
after my arrival I took them to my regular 
tailor and laid the case before him. I tried them 
on for him and asked him to tell me, as man to 
man, whether anything could be done to make 
those garments habitable. He called his cutter 
into consultation and they went over me care- 
fully, meantime uttering those commiserating 
clucking sounds one tailor always utters when 
examining another tailor's handiwork. After 
this my tailor took a lump of chalk and charted 
out a kind of Queen Rosamond's maze of cross- 
marks on my breeches and said I might leave 
them, and that if surgery could save them he 
[ 188 1 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



would operate. At any rate he guaranteed to 
cut them ^way sufficiently to admit of my breast 
bone coming out into the open once more. 

In a week — about — he called me on the tele- 
phone and broke the sad news to me. My 
English riding pants would never ride me again. 
In using the shears he had made a fatal slip and 
had irreparably damaged them in an essential 
location. However, he said I need not worry, 
because it might have been worse; from what 
he had already cut out of them he had garnered 
enough material to make me a neat outing coat, 
and by scrimping he thought he might get a 
waistcoat to match. 

I have my English raincoat; it is still in a 
virgin state so far as wearing it is concerned. 
I may yet wear it and I may not. If I wear it 
and you meet me on the street — and we are 
strangers — you should experience no great diffi- 
culty in recognizing me. Just start in at almost 
any spot on the outer orbit and walk round and 
round as though you were circling a sideshow 
tent looking for a chance to crawl under the 
canvas and see the curiosities for nothing; and 
after a while, if you keep on walking as directed, 
you will come to a person with a plain but sub- 
stantial face, and that will be me in my new 
English raincoat. Then again I may wear it to 
a fancy-dress ball sometime. In that case I 
shall stencil Pikes Peak or Bust! on the side- 
breadth and go as a prairie schooner. If I can 
succeed in training a Missouri hound-dog to 
[189] 



EUROPE REVISED 



trail along immediately behind me the illusion 
will be perfect. 

After these two experiences with the English 
tailor I gave up. Instead of trying to wear the 
apparel of the foreigner I set myself to the study 
of it. I would avoid falling into the habit of 
making comparisons between European institu- 
tions and American institutions that are forever 
favorable to the American side of the argument. 
To my way of thinking there is only one class 
of tourist-Americans to be encountered abroad 
worse than the class who go into hysterical rap- 
ture over everything they see merely because 
it is European, and that is the class who con- 
demn offhand everything they see and jfind 
fault with everything merely because it is not 
American. But I must say that in the matter 
of outer habiliments the American man wins 
the decision on points nearly every whack. 

In his evening garb, which generally fits him, 
but which generally is not pressed as to trouser- 
legs and coatsleeves, the Englishman makes an 
exceedingly good appearance. The swallow- 
tailed coat was created for the Englishman and 
he for it; but on all other occasions the well- 
dressed American leads him — leads the world, 
for that matter. When a Frenchman attires 
himself in his fanciest regalia he merely suc- 
ceeds in looking effeminate; whereas a German, 
under similar circumstances, bears a wadded-in, 
bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance. I never saw 
a German in Germany whose hat was not too 
[ 190 ] 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



small for him — just as I never saw a Japanese 
in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large 
for him — if it was a derby hat. If a German has 
on a pair of trousers that flare out at the bottom 
and a coat with angel sleeves — I think that is 
the correct technical term — and if the front of 
his coat is spangled over with the largest-sized 
horn buttons obtainable he regards himself as 
being dressed to the minute. 

As for the women, I believe even the super- 
critical mantuamakers of Paris have begun to 
concede that, as a nation, the American women 
are the best-dressed women on earth. The 
French women have a way of arranging their 
hair and of wearing their hats and of draping 
their furs about their throats that is artistic 
beyond comparison. There may be a word in 
some folks' dictionaries fitly to describe it — 
there is no such word in mine; but when you 
have said that much you have said all there is 
to say. A French woman's feet are not shod 
well. French shoes, like all European shoes, are 
clumsy and awkward looking. 

English children are well dressed because they 
are simply dressed; and the children themselves, 
in contrast to the overdressed, overly aggressive 
youngsters so frequently encountered in Amer- 
ica, are mannerly and self-effacing, and have 
sane, simple, childish tastes. Young English 
girls are fresh and natural, but frequently 
frumpy; and the English married woman is gen- 
erally dressed in poor taste and appears to have 
[191] 



EUROPE REVISED 



a most limited wardrobe. Apparently the hus- 
band buys all he wants, and then, if there is 
any money left over, the wife gets it to spend 
on herself. 

Venturing one morning into a London chapel 
I saw a dowdy little woman of this type kneeling 
in a pew, chanting the responses to the service. 
Her blouse gaped open all the way down her 
back and she was saying with much fervor, 
"We have left undone those things which we 
ought to have done." She had too, but she 
didn't know it, as she knelt there unconsciously 
supplying a personal illustration for the spoken 
line. 

The typical highborn English woman has pale 
blue eyes, a fine complexion and a clear-cut, 
rather expressionless face with a profile sugges- 
tive of the portraits seen on English postage 
stamps of the early Victorian period; but in the 
arranging of her hair any French shopgirl could 
give her lessons, and any smart American woman 
could teach her a lot about the knack of wearing 
clothes with distinction. 

In England, that land of caste which is rigid 
enough to be cast iron, all men, with the excep- 
tion of petty tradespeople, dress to match the 
vocations they follow. In America no man stays 
put — he either goes forward to a circle above 
the one into which he was born or he slips back 
into a lower one; and so he dresses to suit him- 
self or his wife or his tailor. But in England the 
professional man advertises his calling by his 
[192] 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



clothes. Extreme stage types are ordinary types 
in London. No Southern silver-tongued orator 
of the old-time, string-tied, slouch-hatted, long- 
haired variety ever clung more closely to his 
official makeup than the English barrister clings 
to his spats, his shad-bellied coat and his eye- 
glass dangling on a cord. At a glance one knows 
the medical man or the journalist, the military 
man in undress or the gentleman farmer; also, 
by the same easy method, one may know the 
workingman and the penny postman. The 
workingman has a cap on his head and a necker- 
chief about his throat, and the legs of his 
corduroy trousers are tied up below the knees 
with strings — else he is no workingman. 

When we were in London the postmen were 
threatening to go on strike. From the papers 
I gathered that the points in dispute had to do 
with better hours and better pay; but if they 
had been striking against having to wear the 
kind of cap the British Government makes a 
postman wear, their cause would have had the 
cordial support and intense sympathy of every 
American in town. 

It remains for the English clerk to be the 
only Englishman who seeks, by the clothes he 
wears in his hours of ease, to appear as some- 
thing more than what he really is. Off duty he 
fairly dotes on the high hat of commerce. Fre- 
quently he sports it in connection with an ex- 
ceedingly short and bobby sackcoat, and trousers 
that are four or five inches too short in the legs 
[ 193 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



for him. The Parisian shopman harbors similar 
ambitions — only he expresses them with more 
attention to detail. The noon hour arriving, 
the French shophand doffs his apron and his 
air of deference. He puts on a high hat and a 
frock coat that have been on a peg behind the 
door all the morning, gathers up his cane and 
his gloves; and, becoming on the instant a 
swagger and a swaggering boulevardier, he 
saunters to his favorite sidewalk cafe for a cor- 
dial glassful of a pink or green or purple drink. 
When his little hour of glory is over and done 
with he returns to his counter, sheds his grand- 
eur and is once more your humble and ingratiat- 
ing servitor. 

In residential London on a Sunday afternoon 
one beholds some weird and wonderful costumes. 
On a Sunday afternoon in a sub-suburb of a 
Kensington suburb I saw, passing through a 
drab, sad side street, a little Cockney man with 
the sketchy nose and unfinished features of his 
breed. He was presumably going to church, 
for he carried a large Testament under his arm. 
He wore, among other things, a pair of white 
spats, a long-tailed coat and a high hat. It was 
not a regular high hat, either, but one of those 
trick-performing hats which, on signal, will lie 
doggo or else sit up and beg. And he was riding 
a bicycle of an ancient vintage ! 

The most impressively got-up civilians in 
England — or in the world, either, for that mat- 
ter — are the assistant managers and the deputy 
f 194 1 



MODES OF THE MOMENT 



cashiers of the big London hotels. Compared 
with them the hhes of the field are as lilies in 
the bulb. Their collars are higher, their ties 
are more resplendent, their frock coats more 
floppy as to the tail and more flappy as to the 
lapel, than it is possible to imagine until you 
have seen it all with your own wondering eyes. 
They are haughty creatures, too, austere and full 
of a starchy dignity; but when you come to pay 
your bill you find at least one of them lined up 
with the valet and the waiter, the manservant 
and the maidservant, the ox and the ass, hand 
out and palm open to get his tip. Having tipped 
him you depart feeling ennobled and uplifted — 
as though you had conferred a purse of gold on 
a marquis. 



[ 195 



CHAPTER XI 
DRESSED TO KILL 



WITH us it is the dress of the women 
that gives life and color to the shifting 
show of street life. In Europe it is 
the soldier, and in England the private 
soldier particularly. The German private soldier 
is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too 
limber, and the Italian private soldier has been 
away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the 
British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work 
— what with his dinky cap tilted over one eye, 
and his red tunic that fits him without blemish 
or wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger stick 
flirting the air. As a picture of a first-class 
fighting man I know of but one to match him, 
and that is a kliaki-clad, service-hatted Yankee 
regular — long may he wave! 

There may be something finer in the way of 
a military spectacle than the change of horse- 
guards at Whitehall or the march of the foot- 
guards across the green in St. James' Park on a 
fine, bright morning — but I do not know what 
[196] 



DRESSED TO KILL 



it is. One day, passing Buckingham Palace, I 
came on a footguard on duty in one of the little 
sentry boxes just outside the walls. He did not 
look as though he were alive. He looked as 
though he had been stuffed and mounted by a 
most expert taxidermist. From under his bear- 
skin shako and from over his brazen chin-strap 
his face stared out unwinking and solemn and 
barren of thought. 

I said to myself: "It is taking a long chance, 
but I shall ascertain whether this party has any 
human emotions." So I halted directly in front 
of him and began staring fixedly at his midriff 
as though I saw a button unfastened there or a 
buckle disarranged. For a space of minutes I 
kept my gaze on him without cessation. 

Finally the situation grew painful; but it was 
not that British grenadier who grew embarrassed 
and fidgety — it was the other party to the 
transaction. His gaze never shifted, his eyes 
never wavered — but I came away feeling all 
wriggly. 

In no outward regard whatsoever do the 
soldiers on the Continent compare with the 
soldiers of the British archipelago. When he is 
not on actual duty the German private is always 
going somewhere in a great hurry with some- 
thing belonging to his superior officer — usually 
a riding horse or a specially heavy valise. On 
duty and off he wears that woodenness of ex- 
pression — or, rather, that wooden lack of ex- 
pression — which is found nowhere in such 
[ 197] 



EUROPE REVISED 



flower of perfection as on the faces of German 
soldiers and German toys. 

The Germans prove they have a sense of 
humor by requiring their soldiers to march on 
parade with the goose step; and the French 
prove they have none at all by incasing the 
defenseless legs of their soldiers in those foolish 
red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such 
profusion up at the Pantheon. 

In the event of another war between the two 
nations I anticipate a frightful uiortality among 
pants — especially if the French forces should be 
retreating. The German soldier is not a partic- 
ularly good marksman as marksmen go, but he 
would have to be the worst shot in the world to 
miss a pair of French pants that were going 
away from him at the time. 

Still, when all is said and done, there is some- 
thing essentially Frenchy about those red pants. 
There is something in their length that instinc- 
tively suggests Toulon, something in their 
breadth that makes you think of Toulouse. 
I realize that this joke, as it stands, is weak and 
imperfect. If there were only another French 
seaport called Toubagge I could round it out 
and improve it structurally. 

If the English private soldier is the trimmest, 
the Austrian officer is the most beautiful to look 
on. An Austrian officer is gaudier than the 
door-opener of a London cafe or the porter of 
a Paris hotel. He achieves effects in gaudiness 
which even the Italian officer cannot equal. 
[198 1 









HE DID NOT LOOK AS THOUGH HE WERE ALIVE 



DRESSED TO KILL 



The Italian officer is addicted to cock feathers 
and horsetails on his helmet, to bits of yellow 
and blue let into his clothes, to tufts of red 
and green hung on him in unexpected and un- 
accountable spots. Either the design of bottled 
Italian chianti is modeled after the Italian 
officer or the Italian officer is modeled after the 
bottle of chianti — which, though, I am not pre- 
pared to say without further study of the sub- 
ject. 

But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset 
effect of creation. For color schemes I know of 
nothing in Nature to equal him except the 
Grand Canon of the Colorado. Circus parades 
are unknown in Austria — they are not missed 
either; after an Austrian officer a street parade 
would seem a colorless and commonplace thing. 
In his uniform he runs to striking contrasts — 
canary yellow, with light blue facings; silvers 
and grays; bright greens with scarlet slashings 
— and so on. 

His collar is the very highest of all high collars 
and the heaviest with embroidery; his cloak is 
the longest and the widest; his boots the most 
varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the 
shiniest; and the medals on his bosom are the 
most numerous and the most glittering. Alf 
Ringling and John Philip Sousa would take one 
look at him — and then, mutually filled with an 
envious despair, they would go apart and hold 
a grand lodge of sorrow together. Also, he 
constantly wears his spurs and his sword; he 
[201 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



wears them even when he is in a cafe in the 
evening Hstening to the orchestra, drinking beer 
and allowing an admiring civilian to pay the 
check— and that apparently is every evening. 

There was one Austrian colonel who came 
one night into a cafe in Vienna where we were and 
sat down at the table next to us; and he put 
our eyes right out and made all the lights dim 
and flickery. His epaulets were two hair- 
brushes of augmented size, gold-mounted; his 
PlimsoU marks were outlined in bullion, and 
along his garboard strake ran lines of gold braid; 
but strangest of all to observe was the locality 
where he wore what appeared to be his service 
stripes. Instead of being on his sleeves they 
were at the extreme southern exposure of his 
coattails; I presume an Austrian officer acquires 
merit by sitting down. 

This particular officer's saber kept jingling, 
and so did his spurs, and so did his bracelet. I 
almost forgot the bracelet. It was an ornate 
affair of gold links fastened on his left wrist with 
a big gold locket, and it kept slipping down over 
his hand and rattling against his cuff. The 
chain bracelet locked on the left wrist is very 
common among Austrian officers; it adds just 
the final needed touch. I did not see any of 
them carrying lorgnettes or shower bouquets, 
but I think, in summer they wear veils. 

One opportunity is afforded the European who 
is neither a soldier nor a hotel cashier to dress 
himself up in comic-opera clothes — and that is 
[202 1 



DRESSED TO KILL 



when he a-hunting goes. An American going 
hunting puts on his oldest and most serviceable 
clothes — -a European his giddiest, gayest, glad- 
dest regalia. We were so favored by gracious 
circumstances as to behold several Englishmen 
suitably attired for the chase, and we noted that 
the conventional morning costume of an English 
gentleman expecting to call informally on a 
pheasant or something during the course of the 
forenoon consisted, in the main, of a perfect 
dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over plaits and pock- 
ets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls 
adhering thickly to it, with a belt high up under 
the arms and a saucy tail sticking out behind; 
knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high 
leggings of buff or white, and a special hat — a 
truly adorable confection by the world's leading 
he-milliner. 

If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in 
America the very dickeybirds would fall into 
fits as you passed — the chipmunks would lean 
out of the trees and just naturally laugh you 
to death! But in a land where the woodlands 
are well-kept groves, and the undergrowth, in- 
stead of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented 
fern and gorse and bracken, I suppose it is all 
eminently correct. 

Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scot- 
land to shoot the grouse, the gillie, the heather 
cock, the niblick, the haggis and other Scotch 
game. Thus appareled he ranges the preserves 
of his own fat, fair shires in ardent pursuit of 
1203 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



the English rabbit, which pretty nearly corre- 
sponds to the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious; 
and the English hare, which is first cousin to 
our molly cottontail; and the English pheasant 
— but particularly the pheasant. 

There was great excitement while we were in 
England concerning the pheasants. Either the 
pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels 
or the mangel-wurzels were preying on the 
pheasants. At any rate it had something to do 
with the Land Bill — practically everything that 
happens in England has something to do with 
the Land Bill — and Lloyd George was in a free 
state of perspiration over it; and the papers 
were full of it and altogether there was a great 
pother over it. 

We saw pheasants by the score. We saw 
them first from the windows of our railroad 
carriage — big, beautiful birds nearly as large as 
barnyard fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare 
cabbage patches, regardless of the train chug- 
ging by not thirty yards away; and later we 
saw them again at still closer range as we strolled 
along the haw-and-holly-lined roads of the won- 
derful southern counties. They would scuttle 
on ahead of us, weaving in and out of the hedge- 
rows; and finally, when we insisted on it and 
flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, 
they would get up, with a great drumming of 
wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing 
tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go 
booming away to what passes in Sussex and Kent 
[204] 




PHEASANT SHOOTING IS THE LAST WORD IN THE ENGLISH SPORTING CALENDAR 



DRESSED TO KILL 

for dense cover — meaning by that thickets such 
as you may find in the upper end of Central Park. 

They say King George is one of the best 
pheasant-shots in England. He also collects 
postage stamps when not engaged in his regular 
regal duties, such as laying cornerstones for new 
workhouses and receiving presentation addresses 
from charity children. I have never shot pheas- 
ants; but, having seen them in their free state 
as above described, and having in my youth 
collected postage stamps intermittently, I should 
say, speaking offhand, that of the two pursuits 
postage-stamp collecting is infinitely the more 
exciting and dangerous. 

Through the closed season the keepers mind 
the pheasants, protecting them from poachers 
and feeding them on selected grain; but a day 
comes in October when the hunters go forth and 
take their stands at spaced intervals along a 
cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beat- 
ers dive into the woods from the opposite side, 
and when the tame and trusting creatures come 
clustering about their feet expecting provender 
the beaters scare them up, by waving their um- 
brellas at them, I think, and the pheasants go 
rocketing into the air — rocketing is the correct 
sporting term— go rocketing into the air like a 
flock of Sunday supplements; and the gallant 
gunner downs them in great multitudes, always 
taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes. 
For after all the main question is not "What 
did he kifl.?" but "How does he look.?" 
[207] 



EUROPE REVISED 



At that, I hold no brief for the pheasant — 
except when served with breadcrumb dressing 
and currant jelly he is no friend of mine. It ill 
becomes Americans, with our own record behind 
us, to chide other people for the senseless murder 
of wild things ; and besides, speaking personally, 
I have a reasonably open mind on the subject 
of wild-game shooting. Myself, I shot a wild 
duck once. He was not flying at the time. He 
was, as the stockword goes, setting. I had no 
self-reproaches afterward however. As between 
that duck and myself I regarded it as an even 
break — as fair for one as for the other — because 
at the moment I myself was, as we say, setting 
too. But if, in the interests of true sportsman- 
ship, they must have those annual massacres I 
certainly should admire to see what execution a 
picked half dozen of American quail hunters, 
used to snap-shooting in the cane jungles and 
brier patches of Georgia and Arkansas, could 
accomplish among English pheasants, until such 
time as their consciences mastered them and 
they desisted from slaughter! 

Be that as it may, pheasant shooting is the 
last word in the English sporting calendar. It 
is a sport strictly for the gentry. Except in the 
capacity of innocent bystanders the lower orders 
do not share in it. It is much too good for them; 
besides, they could not maintain the correct 
wardrobe for it. The classes derive one sub- 
stantial benefit from the institution however. 
The sporting instinct of the landed Englishman 
[208] 



DRESSED TO KILL 



has led to the enactment of laws under which an 
ordinary person goes smack to jail if he is caught 
sequestrating a clandestine pheasant bird; but 
it does not militate against the landowner's ped- 
dling off his game after he has destroyed it. 
British thrift comes in here. And so in carload 
lots it is sold to the marketmen. The result is 
that in the fall of the year pheasants are cheaper 
than chickens; and any person who can afford 
poultry on his dinner table can afford pheasants. 

The Continental hunter makes an even more 
spectacular appearance than his British brother. 
No self-respecting German or French sportsman 
would think of faring forth after the incarnate 
brown hare or the ferocious wood pigeon unless 
he had on a green hat with a feather in it; and 
a green suit to match the hat; and swung about 
his neck with a cord a natty fur muff to keep 
his hands in between shots; and a swivel chair 
to sit in while waiting for the wild boar to come 
along and be bowled over. 

Being hunted with a swivel chair is what 
makes the German wild boar wild. On occasion, 
also, the hunter wears, suspended from his belt, 
a cute little hanger like a sawed-off saber, with 
which to cut the throats of his spoil. Then, 
when it has spoiled some more, they will serve 
it at a French restaurant. 

It was our fortune to be in France on the 

famous and ever-memorable occasion when the 

official stag of the French Republic met a tragic 

and untimely end, under circumstances acutely 

[209] 



EUROPE REVISED 



distressing to all who believe in the divinity- 
bestowed prerogatives of the nobility. The 
Paris edition of the Herald printed the lament- 
able tale on its front page and I clipped the 
account. I offer it here in exact reproduction, 
including the headline: 

Hunting Incident Said to be Due to 
Conspiracy 

Further details are given in this morning's 
Figaro of the incident between Prince Murat 
and M. Dauchis, the mayor of Saint-Felix, near 
Clermont, which was briefly reported in yester- 
day's Herald. 

A regular conspiracy was organized by M. 
Dauchis, it is alleged, in order to secure the stag 
Prince Murat and Comte de Valon were hunting 
in the forest of La Neuville-en-Hetz. Already, 
at the outset of the hunt, M. Dauchis, according 
to Le Figaro, charged at a huntsman with a 
little automobile in which he was driving and 
threatened to fire. Then, when the stag ran 
into the wood, near the Trye River, one of his 
keepers shot it. In great haste the animal was 
loaded on another automobile; and before either 
the prince or Comte de Valon could interfere it 
was driven away. 

While Comte de Valon spurred his horse in 
pursuit Prince Murat disarmed the man who 
had shot the stag, for he was leveling his gun 
at another huntsman; but before the gun was 
wrenched from his hands he had struck Prince 
d'Essling, Prince Murat's uncle, across the face 
with the butt. 

[ 210 1 




BEING HXJNTED WITH A SWIVEL CHAIR IS WHAT MAKES THE GERMAN WILD BOAR WILD 



DRESSED TO KILL 



Meantime Comte de Valon had overtaken the 
automobile and, though threatened with revol- 
vers by its occupants, would have recaptured 
the stag if the men in charge of it had not taken 
it into the house of M. Dauchis' father. 

The only course left for Prince Murat and 
Comte de Valon was to lodge a complaint with 
the police for assault and for killing the stag, 
which M. Dauchis refused to give back. 

From this you may see how very much more 
exciting stag hunting is in France than in 
America. Comparing the two systems we find 
but one point of resemblance — namely, the at- 
tempted shooting of a huntsman. In the North 
Woods we do a good deal of that sort of thing: 
however with us it is not yet customary to 
charge the prospective victim in a little auto- 
mobile — that may come in time. Our best bags 
are made by the stalking or still-hunting method. 
Our city-raised sportsman slips up on his guide 
and pots him from a rest. 

But consider the rest of the description so 
graphically set forth by Le Figaro — the intrigu- 
ing of the mayor; the opposing groups rampaging 
round, some on horseback and some in automo- 
bile runabouts; the intense disappointment of 
the highborn Prince Murat and his uncle, the 
Prince d'Essling, and his friend, the Comte de 
Valon; the implied grief of the stag at being 
stricken down by other than noble hands; the 
action of the base-born commoner, who shot 
[ 213 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



the stag, in striking the Prince d'Essling across 
his pained and aristocratic face with the butt — 
exact type of butt and name of owner not being 
given. Only in its failure to clear up this im- 
portant point, and in omitting to give descrip- 
tions of the costumes worn by the two princes 
and the comte, is Le Figaro's story lacking. 
They must have been wearing the very latest 
creations too. 

This last brings us back again to the subject 
of clothes and serves to remind me that, con- 
trary to a belief prevalent on this side of the 
water, good clothes cost as much abroad as they 
cost here. In England a man may buy gloves 
and certain substantial articles of haberdashery 
in silk and linen and wool at a much lower figure 
than in America; and in Italy he will find cro- 
cheted handbags and bead necklaces are to be 
had cheaper than at home — provided, of course, he 
cares for such things as crocheted handbags and 
bead necklaces. Handmade laces and embroid- 
eries and sundry other feminine fripperies, so 
women tell me, are moderately priced on the 
Continent, if so be the tourist-purchaser steers 
clear of the more fashionable shops and chases 
the elusive bargain down a back street; but, 
quality considered, other things cost as much 
in Europe as they cost here — and frequently 
they cost more. If you buy at the shopkeeper's 
first price he has a secret contempt for you; if 
you haggle him down to a reasonably fair valua- 
tion — say about twice the amount a native 
[ 214 1 



DRESSED TO KILL 



would pay for the same thing — he has a half- 
concealed contempt for you; if you refuse to 
trade at any price he has an open contempt for 
you; and in any event he dislikes you because 
you are an American. So there you are. No 
matter how the transaction turns out you have 
his contempt; it is the only thing he parts with 
at cost. 

It is true that you may buy a suit of clothes 
for ten dollars in London; so also may you buy 
a suit of clothes for ten dollars in any Ameri- 
can city, but the reasonably afHuent American 
doesn't buy ten-dollar suits at home. He saves 
himself up to indulge in that form of idiocy 
abroad. In Paris or Rome you may get a five- 
course dinner with wine for forty cents; so you 
may in certain quarters of New York; but in 
either place the man who can afford to pay more 
for his dinner will find it to his ultimate well- 
being to do so. Simply because a boarding 
house in France or Italy is known as a pension 
doesn't keep it from being a boarding house — 
and a pretty average bad one, as I have been 
informed by misguided Americans who tried 
living at a pension, and afterwards put in a 
good deal of their spare time regretting it. 

Altogether, looking back on my own experi- 
ences, I can at this time of writing think of but 
two common commodities which, when grade is 
taken into the equation, are found to be radi- 
cally cheaper in Europe than in America — these 
two things being taxicabs and counts. For their 
[215] 



EUROPE REVISED 



cleanliness and smartness of aspect, and their 
reasonableness of meter-fare, taxicabs all over 
Europe are a constant joy to the traveling 
American. And, though in the United States 
counts are so costly that only the marriageable 
daughters of the very wealthy may afford to 
buy them — and even then, as the count calendars 
attest, have the utmost difficulty in keeping 
them after they are bought — in Continental 
Europe anywhere one may for a moderate price 
hire a true-born count to do almost any small 
job, from guiding one through an art gallery 
to waiting on one at the table. Counts make 
indifferent guides, but are middling fair waiters. 

Outside of the counts and the taxicabs, and 
the food in Germany, I found in all Europe just 
one real overpowering bargain — and that was 
in Naples, where, as a general thing, bargains 
are not what they seem. For the exceedingly 
moderate outlay of one lira — Italian — or twenty 
cents — American — I secured this combination, 
to wit, as follows: 

In the background old Vesuvius, like a wicked, 
fallen angel, wearing his plumy, fumy halo of 
sulphurous hell-smoke; in the middle distance 
the Bay of Naples, each larcenous wave-crest 
in it triple-plated with silvern glory pilfered 
from a splendid moon; on the left the riding 
lights of a visiting squadron of American war- 
ships; on the right the myriad slanted sails of 
the coral-fishers' boats, beating out toward 
Capri, with the curlew-calls of the fishermen 
[216] 



DRESSED TO KILL 



floating back in shrill snatches to meet a jangle 
of bell and bugle from the fleet; in the imme- 
diate foreground a competent and accomplished 
family troupe of six Neapolitan troubadours — 
men, women and children — some of them play- 
ing guitars and all six of them, with fine mellow 
voices and tremendous dramatic effect, singing 
— the words being Italian but the air good 
American— John Brown's Body Lies a-Molder- 
ing in the Grave! 

I defy you to get more than that for twenty 
cents anywhere in the world! 



[217] 



CHAPTER XII 

NIGHT LIFE— WITH THE LIFE PAET 

MISSING 



IN our consideration of this topic we come 
first to the night hfe of the Enghsh. They 
have none. 

Passing along to the next subject under 
the same heading, which is the night Hfe of Paris, 
we find here so much night hfe, of such a de- 
lightfully transparent and counterfeit character; 
so much made-to-measure deviltry; so many 
members of the Madcaps' Union engaged on 
piece-work; so much delicious, hoydenish der- 
ring-do, all carefully stage-managed and expert- 
ly timed for the benefit of North and South 
American spenders, to the end that the deliri- 
ousness shall abate automatically in exact pro- 
portion as the spenders quit spending — in short, 
so much of what is typically Parisian that really 
Paris, on its merits, is entitled to a couple of 
chapters of its own. 

All of which naturally brings us to the two 
remaining great cities of Mid-Europe — Berlin 
f 218 1 



NIGHT LIFE 



and Vienna — and leads us to the inevitable con- 
clusion that the Europeans, in common with all 
other peoples on the earth, only succeed— when 
they try to be desperately wicked — in being 
desperately dull; whereas when they seek their 
pleasures in a natural manner they present racial 
slants and angles that are very interesting to 
observe and very pleasant to have a hand in. 

Take the Germans now: No less astute a 
world traveler than Samuel G. Blythe is spon- 
sor for the assertion that the Berliners follow 
the night-life route because the Kaiser found 
his capital did not attract the tourist types to 
the extent he had hoped, and so decreed that 
his faithful and devoted subjects, leaving their 
cozy hearths and inglenooks, should go forth at 
the hour when graveyards yawn — and who could 
blame them? — to spend the dragging time until 
dawn in being merry and bright. So saying His 
Majesty went to bed, leaving them to work 
while he slept. 

After viewing the situation at first hand the 
present writer is of the opinion that Mr. Blythe 
was quite right in his statements. Certainly 
nothing is more soothing to the eye of the on- 
looker, nothing more restful to his soul, than to 
behold a group of Germans enjoying themselves 
in a normal manner. And absolutely nothing 
is quite so ghastly sad as the sight of those same 
well-flushed, well-fleshed Germans cavorting 
about between the hours of two and four-thirty 
A. M., trying, with all the pachydermic ponder- 
[219] 



EUROPE REVISED 



osity of Barnum's Elephant Quadrille, to be 
professionally gay and cut uppish. The Prus- 
sians must love their Kaiser dearly. We sit up 
with our friends when they are dead; they stay 
up for him until they are ready to die themselves. 

As is well known Berlin abounds in pleasure 
palaces, so called. Enormous places these are, 
where under one widespreading roof are three 
or four separate restaurants of augmented size, 
not to mention winecellars and beer-caves below- 
stairs, and a dancehall or so and a Turkish bath, 
and a bar, and a skating rink, and a concert hall 
— and any number of private dining rooms. The 
German mind invariably associates size with 
enjoyment. 

To these establishments, after his regular din- 
ner, the Berliner repairs with his family, his 
friend or his guest. There is one especially 
popular resort, a combination of restaurant and 
vaudeville theater, at which one eats an excellent 
dinner excellently served, and between courses 
witnesses the turns of a first-rate variety bill, 
always with the inevitable team of American 
coon shouters, either in fast colors or of the 
burnt-cork variety, sandwiched into the pro- 
gram somewhere. 

In the Friedrichstrasse there is another place, 
called the Admiralspalast, which is even more 
attractive. Here, inclosing a big, oval-shaped 
ice arena, balcony after balcony rises circling to 
the roof. On one of these balconies you sit, and 
while you dine and after you have dined you 
f 220 1 



,y 



NIGHT LIFE 



look down on a most marvelous series of skating 
stunts. In rapid and bewildering succession 
there are ballets on skates, solo skating numbers, 
skating carnivals and skating races. Finally 
scenery is slid in on runners and the whole com- 
pany, in costumes grotesque and beautiful, go 
through a burlesque that keeps you laughing 
when you are not applauding, and admiring 
when you are doing neither; while alternating 
lightwaves from overhead electric devices flood 
the picture with shifting, shimmering tides of 
color. It is like seeing a Christmas pantomime 
under an aurora borealis. In America we could 
not do these things — at least we never have 
done them. Either the performance would be 
poor or the provender would be highly expen- 
sive, or both. But here the show is wonderful, 
and the victuals are good and not extravagantly 
priced, and everybody has a bully time. 

At eleven-thirty or thereabout the show at 
the ice palace is over — concluding with a push- 
ball match between teams of husky maidens 
who were apparently born on skates and raised 
on skates, and would not feel natural unless 
they were curveting about on skates. Their 
skates seem as much a part of them as tails to 
mermaids. It is bedtime now for sane folks, 
but at this moment a certain madness which 
does not at all fit in with the true German tem- 
perament descends on the crowd. Some go up- 
stairs to another part of the building, where 
there is a dancehall called the Admiralskasino; 
[221] 



EUROPE REVISED 



but, to the truly swagger, one should hasten to 
the Palais du Danse on the second floor of the 
big Metropolpalast in the Behrenstrasse. This 
place opens promptly at midnight and closes 
promptly at two o'clock in the morning. 

Inasmuch as the Palais du Danse is an insti- 
tution borrowed outright from the French they 
have adopted a typically French custom here. 
As the visitor enters — if he be a stranger — a 
flunky in gorgeous livery intercepts him and 
demands an entrance fee amounting to about 
a dollar and a quarter in our money, as I recall. 
This tariff the American or Englishman pays, 
but the practiced Berliner merely suggests to 
the doorkeeper the expediency of his taking a 
long running start and jumping off into space, 
and stalks defiantly in without forking over a 
single pfennig to any person whatsoever. 

The Palais du Danse is incomparably the 
most beautiful ballroom in the world — so people 
who have been all over the world agree — and it 
is spotlessly clean and free from brackish smells, 
which is more than can be said of any French 
establishment of similar character I have seen. 
At the Palais du Danse the patron sits at a 
table — a table with something on it besides a 
cloth being an essential adjunct to complete en- 
joyment of an evening of German revelry; and 
as he sits and drinks he listens to the playing 
of a splendid band and looks on at the dancing. 
Nothing is drunk except wine — and by wine I 
mainly mean champagne of the most sweetish 




IN ABOUNDS IN PLEASURE PALACES, SO CALLED 



NIGHT LIFE 



and sickish brand obtainable. Elsewhere, for 
one-twentieth the cost, the German could have 
the best and purest beer that is made; but he 
is out now for the big night. Accordingly he satu- 
rates his tissues with the sugary bubble-water of 
France. He does not join in the dancing himself. 
The men dancers are nearly all paid dancers, I 
think, and the beautifully clad women who 
dance are either professionals, too, or else be- 
long to a profession that is older even than 
dancing is. They all dance with a profound 
German gravity and precision. Here is music 
to set a wooden leg a-jigging; but these couples 
circle and glide and dip with an incomprehensi- 
ble decorum and slowness. 

When we were there, they were dancing the 
tango or one of its manifold variations. All 
Europe, like all America, was, for the moment, 
tango mad. While we were in Paris, M. Jean 
Richepin lectured before the Forty Immortals 
of the Five Academies assembled in solemn con- 
clave at the Institute of France. They are 
called the Forty Immortals because nobody can 
remember the names of more than five of them. 
He took for his subject the tango — his motto, 
in short, being one borrowed from the con- 
ductors in the New York subway — "Mind your 
step!" 

While he spoke, which was for an hour or 

more, the bebadged and beribboned bosoms of 

his illustrious compatriots heaved with emotion; 

their faces — or such parts of their faces as were 

[225 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



visible above the whiskerline — flushed with en- 
thusiasm, and most vociferously they applauded 
his masterly phrasing and his tracing-out of the 
evolution of the tango, all the way from its 
Genesis, as it were, to its Revelation. I judge 
the revelation particularly appealed to them — 
that part of it appeals to so many. 

After that the tango seemed literally to trail 
us. We could not escape it. While we were in 
Berlin the emperor saw fit officially to forbid 
the dancing of the tango by officers of his navy 
and army. We reached England just after the 
vogue for tango teas started. 

Naturally we went to one of these affairs. It 
took place at a theater. Such is the English way 
of interpreting the poetry of motion — to hire 
some one else to do it for you, and — in order to 
get the worth of your money — sit and swizzle 
tea while the paid performer is doing it. At the 
tango tea we patronized the tea was up to 
standard, but the dancing of the box-ankled 
professionals was a disappointment. Beforehand 
I had been told that the scene on the stage would 
be a veritable picture. And so it was — Rosa 
Bonheur's Horse Fair. 

As a matter of fact the best dancer I saw in 
Europe was a performing trick pony in a winter 
circus in Berlin. I also remember with distinct- 
ness of detail a chorusman who took part in 
a new Lehar opera, there in Berlin. I do not 
remember him for his dancing, because he was 
no clumsier of foot than his compatriots in the 
[226 1 



NIGHT LIFE 



chorus rank and file; or for his singing, since I 
could not pick his voice out from the combined 
voices of the others. I remember him because 
he wore spectacles — not a monocle nor yet a 
pair of nose-glasses, but heavy-rimmed, double- 
lensed German spectacles with gold bows ex- 
tending up behind his ears like the roots of an 
old-fashioned wisdom tooth. 

Come to think about it, I know of no reason 
why a chorusman should not wear spectacles if 
he needs them in his business or if he thinks 
they will add to his native beauty; but the spec- 
tacle of that bolster-built youth, dressed now as 
a Spanish cavalier and now as a Venetian gon- 
dolier, prancing about, with his spectacles gog- 
gling owlishly out at the audience, and once in 
a while, when a gleam from the footlights caught 
on them, turning to two red-hot disks set in the 
middle of his face, was a thing that is going to 
linger in my memory when a lot of more im- 
portant matters are entirely forgotten. 

Not even in Paris did the tango experts com- 
pare with the tango experts one sees in America. 
At this juncture I pause a moment, giving op- 
portunity for some carping critic to rise and 
call my attention to the fact that perhaps the 
most distinguished of the early school of turkey- 
trotters bears a French name and came to us from 
Paris. To which I reply that so he does and so he 
did; but I add then the counter-argument that he 
came to us by way of Paris, at the conclusion of 
a round trip that started in the old Fourth Ward 
[227] 



EUROPE REVISED 



of the Borough of Manhattan, city of Greater 
New York; for he was born and bred on the 
East Side — and, moreover, was born bearing the 
name of a race of kings famous in the south of 
Ireland and along the Bowery. And he learned 
his art — not only the rudiments of it but the 
final finished polish of it — in the dancehalls of 
Third Avenue, where the best slow-time dancers 
on earth come from. It was after he had ac- 
quired a French accent and had Gallicized his 
name, thereby causing a general turning-over of 
old settlers in the graveyards of the County 
Clare, that he returned to us, a conspicuous fig- 
ure in the world of art and fashion, and was able 
to get twenty-five dollars an hour for teaching 
the sons and daughters of our richest families 
to trip the light tanfastic go. At the same time, 
be it understood, I am not here to muckrake 
the past of one so prominent and aflQuent in the 
most honored and lucrative of modern profes- 
sions; but facts are facts, and these particular 
facts are quoted here to bind and buttress my 
claim that the best dancers are the American 
dancers. 

After this digression let us hurry right back 
to that loyal Berliner whom we left seated in 
the Palais du Danse on the Behrenstrasse, wait- 
ing for the hour of two in the morning to come. 
The hour of two in the morning does come; the 
lights die down; the dancers pick up their heavy 
feet — it takes an effort to pick up those Conti- 
nental feet — and quit the waxen floor; the Ober- 
[228] 



NIGHT LIFE 



kellner comes round with his gold chain of office 
dangling on his breast and collects for the wine, 
and our German friend, politely inhaling his 
yawns, gets up and goes elsewhere to finish his 
good time. And, goldarn it, how he does dread 
it! Yet he goes, faithful soul that he is. 

He goes, let us say, to the Pavilion Mascotte 
— no dancing, but plenty of drinking and music 
and food — which opens at two and stays open 
until four, when it shuts up shop in order that 
another place in the nature of a cabaret may 
open. And so, between five and six o'clock in 
the morning of the new day, when the lady gar- 
bagemen and the gentlemen chambermaids of 
the German capital are abroad on their several 
duties, he journeys homeward, and so, as Mr. 
Pepys says, to bed, with nothing disagreeable to 
look forward to except repeating the same dose 
all over again the coming night. This sort of 
thing would kill anybody except a Prussian — 
for, mark you, between intervals of drinking he 
has been eating all night; but then a Prussian 
has no digestion. He merely has gross tonnage 
in the place where his digestive apparatus ought 
to be. 

The time to see a German enjoying himself 
is when he is following his own bent and not 
obeying the imperial edict of his gracious sover- 
eign. I had a most excellent opportunity of 
observing him while engaged in his own private 
pursuits of pleasure when by chance one evening, 
in the course of a solitary prowl, I bumped into 
[229] 



EUROPE REVISED 



a sort of Berlinesque version of Coney Island, 
with the island part missing. It was not out 
in the suburbs where one would naturally expect 
to find such a resort. It was in the very middle 
of the city, just round the corner from the cafe 
district, not more than half a mile, as the Blut- 
wurst flies, from Unter den Linden. Even at 
this distance and after a considerable lapse of 
time I can still appreciate that place, though I 
cannot pronounce it; for it had a name consisting 
of one of those long German compound words 
that run all the way round a fellow's face and 
lap over at the back, like a clergyman's collar, 
and it had also a subname that no living person 
could hope to utter unless he had a thorough 
German education and throat trouble. You 
meet such nouns frequently in Germany. They 
are not meant to be spoken; you gargle them. 
To speak the full name of this park would re- 
quire two able-bodied persons — one to start it 
off and carry it along until his larynx gave out, 
and the other to take it up at that point and 
finish it. 

But for all the nine-jointed impressiveness of 
its title this park was a live, brisk little park 
full of sideshow tents sheltering mildly amusing, 
faked-up attractions, with painted banners flap- 
ping in the air and barkers spieling before the 
entrances and all the ballyhoos going at full 
blast — altogether a creditable imitation of a 
street fair as witnessed in any American town 
that has a good live Elks' Lodge in it. 
[230] 




I AM GIVEN TO UNDERSTAND THAT VIENNA NIGHT LIFE IS THE WILDEST 
OF ALL NIGHT LIFE 



NIGHT LIFE 



Plainly the place was popular. Germans of 
all conditions and all ages and all sizes — but 
mainly the broader lasts — were winding about 
in thick streams in the narrow, crooked alleys 
formed by the various tents. They packed 
themselves in front of each booth where a free 
exhibition was going on, and when the free part 
was over and the regular performance began 
they struggled good-naturedly to pay the ad- 
mission fee and enter in at the door. 

And, for a price, there were freaks to be seen 
who properly belonged on our side of the water, 
it seemed to me. I had always supposed them 
to be exclusively domestic articles until I en- 
countered them here. There was a regular 
Bosco — a genuine Herr He Alive Them Eats — 
sitting in his canvas den entirely surrounded by 
a choice and tasty selection of eating snakes. 
The orthodox tattooed man was there, too, first 
standing up to display the text and accompany- 
ing illustrations on his front cover, and then 
turning round so the crowd might read what he 
said on the other side. And there was many 
another familiar freak introduced to our fathers 
by Old Dan Rice and to us, their children, 
through the good offices of Daniel's long and 
noble line of successors. 

A seasonable Sunday is a fine time; and the 
big Zoological Garden, which is a favorite place 
for studying the Berlin populace at the diver- 
sions they prefer when left to their own devices. 
At one table will be a cluster of students, with 
[233 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



their queer little pill-box caps of all colors, their 
close-cropped heads and well-shaved necks, and 
their saber-scarred faces. At the next table half 
a dozen spectacled, long-coated men, who look as 
though they might be university professors, are 
confabbing earnestly. And at the next table and 
the next and the next — and so on, until the 
aggregate runs into big figures — are family 
groups — grandsires, fathers, mothers, aunts, un- 
cles and children, on down to the babies in arms. 
By the uncountable thousands they spend the 
afternoon here, munching sausages and sipping 
lager, and enjoying the excellent music that is 
invariably provided. At each plate there is a 
beer mug, for everybody is forever drinking and 
nobody is ever drunk. You see a lot of this 
sort of thing, not only in the parks and gardens 
so numerous in and near any German city but 
anywhere on the Continent. Seeing it helps 
an American to understand a main difference 
between the American Sabbath and the Euro- 
pean Sunday. We keep it and they spend it. 

I am given to understand that Vienna night 
life is the most alluring, the most abandoned, 
the most wicked and the wildest of all night life. 
Probably this is so — certainly it is the most 
cloistered and the most inaccessible. The Vien- 
nese does not deliberately exploit his night life 
to prove to all the world that he is a gay dog 
and will not go home until morning though it 
kill him — as the German does. Neither does he 
maintain it for the sake of the coin to be ex- 
[234 1 



NIGHT LIFE 



traded from the pockets of the tourist, as do 
the Parisians. With him his night Hfe is a thing 
he has created and which he supports for his 
own enjoyment. 

And so it goes on — not out in the open; not 
press-agented; not advertised; but behind closed 
doors. He does not care for the stranger's pres- 
ence, nor does he suffer it either — unless the 
stranger is properly vouched for. The best the- 
aters in Vienna are small, exclusive affairs, 
privately supported, and with seating capacity 
for a few chosen patrons. Once he has quit the 
public cafe with its fine music and its bad wait- 
ers the uninitiated traveler has a pretty lone- 
some time of it in Vienna. Until all hours he 
may roam the principal streets seeking that fillip 
of wickedness which will give zest to life and 
provide him with something to brag about when 
he gets back among the home folks again. He 
does not find it. Charades would provide a 
much more exciting means of spending the 
evening; and, in comparison with the sights 
he witnesses, anagrams and acrostics are posi- 
tively thrilling. 

He is tantalized by the knowledge that all 
about him there are big doings, but, so far as 
he is concerned, he might just as well be attend- 
ing a Sunday-school cantata. Unless he be 
suitably introduced he will have never a chance 
to shake a foot with anybody or buy a drink 
for somebody in the inner circles of Viennese 
night life. He is emphatically on the outside, 
[235 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



denied even the poor satisfaction of looking in. 
At that I have a suspicion, born of casual ob- 
servation among other races, that the Viennese 
really has a better time when he is not trying 
than when he is trying. 



[236] 



CHAPTER XIII 
OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 



N'"0 taste of the night life of Paris is 
regarded as complete without a visit 
to an Apache resort at the fag-end of 
it. For orderly and law-abiding people 
the disorderly and lawbreaking people always 
have an immense fascination anyhow. The 
average person, though inclined to blink at 
whatever prevalence of the criminal classes may 
exist in his own community, desires above all 
things to know at firsthand about the criminals 
of other communities. In these matters charity 
begins at home. 

Every New Yorker who journeys to the West 
wants to see a few roadagents; conversely the 
Westerner sojourning in New York pesters his 
New York friends to lead him to the haunts of 
the gangsters. It makes no difference that in a 
Western town the prize hold-up man is more 
apt than not to be a real-estate dealer; that in 
New York the average run of citizens know no 
more of the gangs than they know of the Metro- 
[237] 



EUROPE REVISED 



politan Museum of Art — which is to say, noth- 
ing at all. Human nature comes to the surface 
just the same. 

In Paris they order this thing differently; they 
exhibit the same spirit of enterprise that in a 
lesser degree characterized certain promoters of 
rubberneck tours who some years ago fitted up 
make-believe opium dens in New York's China- 
town for the awed delectation of out-of-town 
spectators. Knowing from experience that every 
other American who lands in Paris will crave to 
observe the Apache while the Apache is in the 
act of Apaching round, the canny Parisians have 
provided a line of up-to-date Apache dens within 
easy walking distance of Montmartre; and thith- 
er the guides lead the round-eyed tourist and 
there introduce him to well-drilled, carefully 
made-up Apaches and Apachesses engaged in 
their customary sports and pastimes for as long 
as he is willing to pay out money for the 
privilege. 

Being forewarned of this I naturally desired 
to see the genuine article. I took steps to 
achieve that end. Suitably chaperoned by a 
trio of transplanted Americans who knew a 
good bit about the Paris underworld I rode over 
miles of bumpy cobblestones until, along about 
four o'clock in the morning, our taxicab turned 
into a dim back street opening off one of the 
big public markets and drew up in front of a 
grimy establishment rejoicing in the happy and 
well-chosen name of the Cave of the Innocents. 
[238] 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

Alighting we passed through a small boozing 
ken, where a frowzy woman presided over a bar, 
serving drinks to smocked marketmen, and at 
the rear descended a steep flight of stone steps. 
At the foot of the stairs we came on two gen- 
darmes who sat side by side on a wooden bench, 
having apparently nothing else to do except to 
caress their goatees and finger their swords. 
Whether the gendarmes were stationed here to 
keep the Apaches from preying on the market- 
men or the marketmen from preying on the 
Apaches I know not; but having subsequently 
purchased some fresh fruit in that selfsame 
market I should say now that if anybody about 
the premises needed police protection it was the 
Apaches. My money would be on the market- 
men every time. 

Beyond the couchant gendarmes we traversed 
a low, winding passage cut out of stone and so 
came at length to what seemingly had originally 
been a winevault, hollowed out far down be- 
neath the foundations of the building. The 
ceiling was so low that a tall man must stoop 
to avoid knocking his head off. The place was 
full of smells that had crawled in a couple of 
hundred years before and had died without 
benefit of clergy, and had remained there ever 
since. For its chief item of furniture the cavern 
had a wicked old piano, with its lid missing, so 
that its yellowed teeth showed in a perpetual 
snarl. I judged some of its most important 
vital organs were missing too — after I heard it 
[239] 



EUROPE REVISED 



played. On the walls were inscribed such words 
as naughty little boys write on schoolhouse 
fences in this country, and more examples of 
this pleasing brand of literature were carved on 
the whittled oak benches and the rickety wooden 
stools. So much for the physical furbishings. 

By rights — by all the hallowed rules and pre- 
cedents of the American vaudeville stage! — the 
denizens of this cozy retreat in the bowels of 
the earth should have been wearing high-waisted 
baggy velvet trousers and drinking absinthe out 
of large flagons, and stabbing one another be- 
tween the shoulder blades, and ever and anon, 
in the mystic mazes of the dance, playing crack- 
the-whip with the necks and heels of their ador- 
ing lady friends; but such was not found to be 
the case. In all these essential and traditional 
regards the assembled Innocents were as poign- 
antly disappointing as the costers of London 
had proved themselves. 

According to all the printed information on 
the subject the London coster wears clothes 
covered up with pearl buttons and spends his 
time swapping ready repartee with his Donah 
or his Dinah. The costers I saw were barren of 
pearl buttons and silent of speech; and almost 
invariably they had left their Donahs at home. 
Similarly these gentlemen habitues of the Cave 
of the Innocents wore few or no velvet pants, 
and guzzled little or none of the absinthe. Their 
favorite tipple appeared to be beer; and their 
female companions snuggled closely beside them. 
[240 1 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

We stayed among them fully twenty minutes, 
but not a single person was stabbed while we 
were there. It must have been an off -night for 
stabbings. 

Still, I judged them to have been genuine ex- 
hibits because here, for the first, last and only 
time in Paris, I found a shop where a stranger 
ready to spend a little money was not welcomed 
with vociferous enthusiasm. The paired-off 
cave-dwellers merely scowled on us as we 
scrouged past them to a vacant bench in a far 
corner. The waiter, though, bowed before us — 
a shockheaded personage in the ruins of a dress 
suit — at the same time saying words which I 
took to be complimentary until one of my friends 
explained that he had called us something that 
might be freely translated as a certain kind of 
female lobster. Circumscribed by our own in- 
flexible and unyielding language we in America 
must content ourselves with calling a man a 
plain lobster; but the limber-tongued Gaul goes 
further than that — he calls you a female lobster, 
which seems somehow or other to make it more 
binding. 

However, I do not really think the waiter 
meant to be deliberately offensive; for presently, 
having first served us with beer which for ob- 
vious reasons we did not drink, he stationed him- 
self alongside the infirm piano and rendered a 
little ballad to the effect that all men were 
spiders and all women were snakes, and all the 
world was a green poison; so, right off, I knew 
[241] 



EUROPE REVISED 



what his trouble was, for I had seen many persons 
just as morbidly affected as himself down in the 
malaria belt of the United States, where every- 
body has liver for breakfast every morning. The 
waiter was bilious — that was what ailed him. 

For the sake of the conventions I tried to feel 
apprehensive of grave peril. It was no use. I 
felt safe — not exactly comfortable, but perfectly 
safe. I could not even muster up a spasm of the 
spine when a member of our party leaned over 
and whispered in my ear that any one of these 
gentry roundabout us would cheerfully cut a 
man's throat for twenty-five cents. I was sur- 
prised, though, at the moderation of the cost; 
this was the only cheap thing I had struck in 
Paris. It was cheaper even than the same job 
is supposed to be in the district round Chatham 
Square, on the East Side of New York, where the 
credulous stranger so frequently is told that he 
can have a plain murder done for five dollars 
— or a fancy murder, with trimmings, for ten; 
rate card covering other jobs on application. 
In America, however, it has been my misfortune 
that I did not have the right amount handy; 
and here in Paris I was handicapped by my 
inability to make change correctly. By now I 
would not have trusted anyone in Paris to 
make change for me — not even an Apache. I 
was sorry for this, for at a quarter a head I 
should have been very glad to engage a troupe 
of Apaches to kill me about two dollars' worth 
of cabdrivers and waiters. For one of the wait- 
[242] 




WE STATED TWENTY MINUTES, BUT IT MUST HAVE BEEN 
AN OFF-NIGHT FOR STABBINGS 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

ers at our hotel I would have been willing to pay 
as much as fifty cents, provided they killed him 
very slowly. Because of the reasons named, 
however, I had to come away without making 
any deal, and I have always regretted it. 

At the outset of the chapter immediately pre- 
ceding this one I said the English had no night 
life. This was a slight but a pardonable mis- 
statement of the actual facts. The Englishman 
has, not so much night life as the Parisian, the 
Berliner, the Viennese or the Budapest; but he 
has more night life in his town of London than 
the Roman has in his town of Rome. In Rome 
night life for the foreigner consists of going in- 
doors at eventide and until bedtime figuring 
up how much money he has been skinned out of 
during the course of the day just done — and for 
the native in going indoors and counting up how 
much money he has skinned the foreigner out 
of during the day aforesaid. London has its 
night life, but it ends early — in the very shank 
of the evening, so to speak. 

This is due in a measure to the operation of 
the early-closing law, which, however, does not 
apply if you are a bona-fide traveler stopping 
at your own inn. There the ancient tavern law 
protects you. You may sit at ease and, if so 
minded, may drink and eat until daylight doth 
appear or doth not appear, as is generally the 
case in the foggy season. There is another law, 
of newer origin, to prohibit the taking of children 
under a certain age into a public house. On the 
[ 245 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



passage of this act there at once sprang up a 
congenial and lucrative employment for those 
horrible old-women drunkards who are so dis- 
tressingly numerous in the poorer quarters of 
the town. Regardless of the weather one of 
these bedrabbled creatures stations herself just 
outside the door of a pub. Along comes a mother 
with a thirst and a child. Surrendering her off- 
spring to the temporary care of the hag the 
mother goes within and has her refreshment at 
the bar. When, wiping her mouth on the back 
of her hand, she comes forth to reclaim the 
youngster she gives the other woman a ha'penny 
for her trouble, and eventually the other woman 
harvests enough ha'penny bits to buy a dram 
of gin for herself. On a rainy day I have seen 
a draggled, Sairey-Gamp-looking female caring 
for as many as four damp infants under the 
drippy portico of an East End groggery. 

It is to the cafes that the early-closing law 
chiefly applies. The cafes are due to close for 
business within half an hour after midnight. 
When the time for shutting up draws nigh the 
managers do not put their lingering patrons out 
physically. The individual's body is a sacred 
thing, personal liberty being most dear to an 
Englishman. It will be made most dear to you 
too — in the law courts — if you infringe on it 
by violence or otherwise. No ; they have a gen- 
tler system than that, one that is free from 
noise, excitement and all mussy work. 

Along toward twelve-thirty o'clock the wait- 
[246] 



-.* 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

ers begin going about, turning out the lights. 
The average London restaurant is none too 
brightly illuminated to start with, being a dim 
and dingy ill-kept place compared with the 
glary, shiny lobster palace that we know; so 
instantly you are made aware of a thickening 
of the prevalent gloom. The waiters start in at 
the far end of the room and turn out a few lights. 
Drawing nearer and nearer to you they turn 
out more lights; and finally, by way of strength- 
ening the hint, they turn out the lights imme- 
diately above your head, which leaves you in 
the stilly dark with no means of seeing your food 
even; unless you have taken the precaution to 
spread phosphorus on your sandwich instead of 
mustard — which, however, is seldom done. A 
better method is to order a portion of one 
of the more luminous varieties of imported 
cheese. 

The best thing of all, however, is to take your 
hat and stick and go away from there. And 
then, unless you belong to a regular club or 
carry a card of admission to one of the chartered 
all-night clubs that have sprung up so abun- 
dantly in London, and which are uniformly 
stuffy, stupid places where the members take 
their roistering seriously — or as a last resort, 
unless you care to sit for a tiresome hour or two 
in the grill of your hotel — you might as well be 
toddling away to bed; that is to say, you might 
as well go to bed unless you find the scenes in 
the street as worth while as I found them. 
[247 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



At this hour London's droning voice has 
abated to a deep, hoarse snore; London has 
become a great, broody giant taking rest that 
is troubled by snatches of wakefulness; Lon- 
don's grimy, lined face shows new wrinkles of 
shadow; and new and unexpected clumping of 
colors in monotone and halftone appear. From 
the massed-up bulk of things small detached bits 
stand vividly out: a flower girl whose flowers 
and whose girlhood are alike in the sere and 
yellow leaf; a soldier swaggering by, his red 
coat lighting up the grayish mass about him 
like a livecoal in an ashheap ; a policeman escort- 
ing a drunk to quarters for the night — not, mind 
you, escorting him in a clanging, rushing patrol 
wagon, which would serve to attract public at- 
tention to the distressing state of the overcome 
one, but conveying him quietly, unostentatious- 
ly, surreptitiously almost, in a small-wheeled 
vehicle partaking somewhat of the nature of a 
baby carriage and somewhat of the nature of a 
pushcart. 

The policeman shoves this along the road jail- 
ward and the drunk lies at rest in it, stretched 
out full length, with a neat rubber bedspread 
drawn up over his prostrate form to screen him 
from drafts and save his face from the gaze of 
the vulgar. Drunkards are treated with the 
tenderest consideration in London; for, as you 
know, Britons never will be slaves — though some 
of them in the presence of a title give such 
imitations of being slaves as might fool even 
[ 248 ] 



J 



OUR FRIEND. THE ASSASSIN 

SO experienced a judge as the late Simon Legree; 
and — as perchance you may also have heard — 
an Enghshman's souse is his castle. So in due 
state they ride him and his turreted souse to 
the station house in a perambulator. 

From midnight to daylight the taxicabs by 
the countless swarm will be charging about in 
every direction — charging, moreover, at the rate 
of eight pence a mile. Think that over, ye 
taxitaxed wretches of New York, and rend your 
garments, with lamentations loud ! There is this 
also to be said of the London taxi service — and 
to an American it is one of the abiding marvels 
of the place — that, no matter where you go, no 
matter how late the hour or how outlying and 
obscure the district, there is always a trim taxi- 
cab just round the next corner waiting to come 
instantly at your whistle, and with it a beggar 
with a bleak, hopeless face, to open the cab door 
for you and stand, hat in hand, for the penny 
you toss him. 

In the main centers, such as Oxford Circus 
and Piccadilly Circus and Charing Cross, and 
along the Embankment, the Strand and Pall 
Mall, they are as thick as fleas on the Missouri 
houn' dawg famous in song and story — the taxis, 
I mean, though the beggars are reasonably 
thick also — and they hop like fleas, bearing you 
swiftly and surely and cheaply on your way. 
The meters are honest, openfaced meters; and 
the drivers ask no more than their legal fares 
and are satisfied with tips within reason. Here 
[249] 



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in America we have the kindred arts of taxi- 
dermy and taxicabbery; one of these is the art 
of skinning animals and the other is the art of 
skinning people. The ruthless taxirobber of 
New York would not last half an hour in Lon- 
don; for him the jail doors would yawn. 

Oldtime Londoners deplored the coming of 
the taxicab and the motorbus, for their coming 
meant the entire extinction of the driver of the 
horse-drawn bus, who was an institution, and 
the practical extinction of the hansom cabby, 
who was a type and very frequently a humorist 
too. But an American finds no fault with the 
present arrangement; he is amply satisfied with 
it. 

Personally I can think of no more exciting 
phase of the night life of the two greatest cities 
of Europe than the stunt of dodging taxicabs. 
In London the peril that lurks for you at every 
turning is not the result of carelessness on the 
part of the drivers; it is due to the rules of the 
road. Afoot, an Englishman meeting you on 
the sidewalk turns, as we do, to the right hand; 
but mounted he turns to the left. The foot 
passenger's prerogative of turning to the right 
was one of the priceless heritages wrested from 
King John by the barons at Runnymede; but 
when William the Conqueror rode into the Bat- 
tle of Hastings he rode a left-handed horse — 
and so, very naturally and very properly, every- 
thing on hoof or wheel in England has con- 
sistently turned to the left ever since. I took 
[250] 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

some pains to look up the original precedents 
for these facts and to establish them historically. 

The system suits the English mind, but it 
is highly confusing to an American who gets 
into the swirl of traffic at a crossing — and every 
London crossing is a swirl of traffic most of the 
time — and looks left when he should look right, 
and looks right when he should be looking left 
until the very best he can expect, if he survive 
at all, is cross-eyes and nervous prostration. 

I lost count of the number of close calls from 
utter and mussy destruction I had while in Lon- 
don. Sometimes a policeman took pity on me 
and saved me, and again, by quick and frenzied 
leaping, I saved myself; but then the London 
cabmen were poor marksmen at best. In front 
of the Savoy one night the same cabman in 
rapid succession had two beautiful shots at me 
and each time missed the bull's-eye by a dis- 
qualifying margin of inches. A New York 
chauffeur who had failed to splatter me all over 
the vicinage at the first chance would have been 
ashamed to go home afterward and look his 
innocent little ones in the face. 

Even now I cannot decide in my own mind 
which is the more fearsome and perilous thing 
— to be afoot in Paris at the mercy of all the 
maniacs who drive French motor cars or to be 
in one of the motor cars at the mercy of one of 
the maniacs. Motoring in Paris is the most 
dangerous sport known — just as dueling is the 
safest. There are some arguments to be ad- 
[251] 



EUROPE REVISED 



vanced in favor of dueling. It provides copy 
for the papers and harmless excitement for the 
participants — -and it certainly gives them a 
chance to get a little fresh air occasionally, but 
with motoring it is different. In Paris there are 
no rules of the road except just these two — the 
pedestrian who gets run over is liable to prosecu- 
tion, and all motor cars must travel at top speed. 

If I live to be a million I shall never get over 
shuddering as I think back to a taxicab ride I 
had in the rush hour one afternoon over a route 
that extended from away down near the site of 
the Bastille to a hotel away up near the Place 
Vendome. The driver was a congenital mad- 
man, the same as all Parisian taxicab drivers are; 
and in addition he was on this occasion acquiring 
special merit by being quite drunk. This last, 
however, was a detail that did not dawn on my 
perceptions until too late to cancel the contract. 
Once he had got me safely fastened inside his 
rickety, creaky devil-wagon he pulled all the stops 
all the way out and went tearing up the crowded 
boulevard like a comet with a can tied to its tail. 

I hammered on the glass and begged him to 
slow down — that is, I hammered on the glass and 
tried to beg him to slow down. For just such 
emergencies I had previously stocked up with 
two French words — Doucement! and Vite! I 
knew that one of those words meant speed and 
the other meant less speed, but in the turmoil 
of the moment I may have confused them 
slightly. Anyhow, to be on the safe side, I 
[ 252 1 



^i 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

yelled "Vite!'^ a while and then ''DoucementI" 
a while; and then " Doucement! " and ^'Vite!" 
alternately, and mixed in a few short, simple 
Anglo-Saxon cusswords and prayers for dressing. 
But nothing I said seemed to have the least 
eflfeet on that demoniac scoundrel. Without 
turning his head he merely shouted back some- 
thing unintelligible and threw on more juice. 

On and on we tore, slicing against the side- 
walk, curving and jibbing, clattering and careen- 
ing—now going on two wheels and now on four 
— while the lunatic shrieked curses of disap- 
pointment at the pedestrians who scuttled away 
to safety from our charging onslaughts; and I 
held both hands over my mouth to keep my heart 
from jumping out into my lap. 

I saw, with instantaneous but photographic 
distinctness, a lady, with a dog tucked under 
her arm, who hesitated a moment in our very 
path. She was one of the largest ladies I ever 
saw and the dog under her arm was certainly 
the smallest dog I ever saw. You might say 
the lady was practically out of dog. I thought 
we had her and probably her dog too; but she 
fell back and was saved by a matter of half an 
inch or so. I think, though, we got some of the 
buttons off her shirtwaist and the back trimming 
of her hat. 

Then there was a rending, tearing crash as 

we took a fender off a machine just emerging 

from a cross street, but my lunatic never 

checked up at all. He just flung a curling ribbon 

[253] 



EUROPE REVISED 



of profanity over his shoulder at the other 
driver and bounded onward Hke a bat out of the 
Bad Place. That was the hour when my hair 
began to turn perceptibly grayer. And yet, 
when by a succession of miracles we had landed 
intact at my destination, the fiend seemed to 
think he had done a praiseworthy and creditable 
thing. I only wish he had been able to under- 
stand the things I called him — that is all I wish ! 
It is by a succession of miracles that the mem- 
bers of his maniacal craft usually do dodge death 
and destruction. The providence that watches 
over the mentally deficient has them in its care, 
I guess; and the same beneficent influence fre- 
quently avails to save those who ride behind 
them and, to a lesser extent, those who walk 
ahead. Once in a while a Paris cabman does 
have a lucky stroke and garner in a foot traveler. 
In an instant a vast and surging crowd convenes. 
In another instant the road is impassably 
blocked. Up rushes a gendarme and worms his 
way through the press to the center. He has a 
notebook in his hand. In this book he enters 
the gloating cabman's name, his age, his ad- 
dress, and his wife's maiden name, if any; and 
gets his views on the Dreyfus case; and finds 
out what he thinks about the separation of 
church and state; and tells him that if he keeps 
on the way he is headed he will be getting the 
cross of the Legion of Honor pretty soon. They 
shake hands and embrace, and the cabman cuts 
another notch in his mudguard, and gets back 
[254] 



OUR FRIEND, THE ASSASSIN 

on the seat and drives on. Then if, by any- 
chance, the victim of the accident still breathes, 
the gendarme arrests him for interfering with 
the traffic. It is a lovely system and sweetly 
typical. 

Under the general classification of thrilling 
moments in the night life of Europe I should 
like to list a carriage trip through the outskirts of 
Naples after dark. In the first place the carriage 
driver is an Italian driver — which is a shorter 
way of saying he is the worst driver living. His 
idea of getting service out of a horse is, first to 
snatch him to a standstill by yanking on the 
bit and then to force the poor brute into a 
gallop by lashing at him with a whip having a 
particularly loud and vixenish cracker on it; and 
at every occasion to whoop at the top of his 
voice. In the second place the street is as nar- 
row as a narrow alley, feebly lighted, and has 
no sidewalks. And the rutty paving stones 
which stretch from housefront to housefront are 
crawling with people and goats and dogs and 
children. Finally, to add zest to the affair, 
there are lots of loose cows mooning about — 
for at this hour the cowherd brings his stock to 
the doors of his patrons. In an Italian city the 
people get their milk from a cow, instead of 
from a milkman as with us. The milk is de- 
livered on the hoof, so to speak. 

The grown-ups refuse to make way for you 
to pass and the swarming young ones repay 
you for not killing them by pelting pebbles and 
[255 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



less pleasant things into your face. Beggars in 
all degrees of filth and deformity and repulsive- 
ness run alongside the carriage in imminent 
danger from the wheels, begging for alms. If 
you give them something they curse you for 
not giving them more, and if you give them 
nothing they spit at you for a base dog of 
a heretic. 

But then, what could you naturally expect 
from a population that thinks a fried cuttlefish 
is edible and a beefsteak is not? 



[256] 



CHAPTER XIV 
THAT GAY PARESIS 



A S you walk along the Rue de la Paix* 

ZJk and pay and pay, and keep on paying, 
A. JL your eye is constantly engaged by two 
inscriptions that occur and recur with 
the utmost frequency. One of these appears in 
nearly every shopwindow and over nearly every 
shopdoor. It says: 

English Spoken Here. 

This, I may tell you, is one of the few abso- 
lutely truthful and dependable statements en- 
countered by the tourist in the French capital. 
Invariably English is spoken here. It is spoken 
here during all the hours of the day and until far 
into the dusk of the evening; spoken loudly, 
clearly, distinctly, hopefully, hopelessly, stri- 
dently, hoarsely, despondently, despairingly and 
finally profanely by Americans who are trying 
to make somebody round the place understand 
what they are driving at. 

* The X being one of the few silent things in France. 
[257 1 



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The other inscription is carved, painted or 
printed on all public buildings, on most monu- 
ments, and on many private establishments as 
well. It is the motto of the French Republic, 
reading as follows: 

Liberality! Economy! Frugality! f 
The first word of this — the Liberality part — 
is applicable to the foreigner and is aimed di- 
rectly at him as a prayer, an injunction and a 
command; while the rest of it — the Economy 
and the Frugality — is competently attended to 
by the Parisians themselves. The foreigner has 
only to be sufficiently liberal and he is as- 
sured of a flattering reception wheresoever his 
straying footsteps may carry him, whether in 
Paris or in the provinces ; but wheresoever those 
feet of his do carry him he will find a people dis- 
tinguished by a frugality and inspired by an 
economy of the frugalest and most economical 
character conceivable. In the streets of the 
metropolis he is expected, when going anywhere, 
to hail the fast-flitting taxicabf , though the resi- 
dents patronize the public bus. Indeed, the 
distinction is made clear to his understanding 
from the moment he passes the first outlying 
fortress at the national frontier § — since, for the 
looks of things if for no better reason, he must 
travel first-class on the de-luxe trains ||, whereas 

t Free translation. 

X Stops on signal only — and sometimes not then. 

§ Flag station. 

II Diner taken off when you are about half through eating. 

[258] 



.f 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



the Frenchmen pack themselves tightly but 
frugally into the second-class and the third-class 
compartments. 

Before I went to France I knew Saint Denis 
was the patron saint of the French; but I did 
not know why until I heard the legend connected 
with his death. When the executioner on the 
hill at Montmartre cut off his head the good 
saint picked it up and strolled across the fields 
with it tucked under his arm — so runs the tale. 
His head, in that shape, was no longer of any 
particular value to him, but your true Parisian 
is of a saving disposition. And so the Paris 
population have worshiped Saint Denis ever 
since. Both as a saint and as a citizen he filled 
the bill. He would not throw anything away, 
whether he needed it or not. 

Paris — not the Paris of the art lover, nor the 
Paris of the lover of history, nor yet again the 
Paris of the worth-while Parisians — but the 
Paris which the casual male visitor samples, is 
the most overrated thing on earth, I reckon — 
except alligator-pear salad — and the most costly. 
Its system of conduct is predicated, based, or- 
ganized and manipulated on the principle that 
a foreigner with plenty of money and no soul 
will be along pretty soon. Hence by day and 
by night the deadfall is rigged and the trap is 
set and baited — baited with a spurious gayety 
and an imitation joyousness; but the joyousness 
is as thin as one coat of sizing, and the brass 
shines through the plating; and behind the 
[259] 



EUROPE REVISED 



painted, parted lips of laughter the sharp teeth 
of greed show in a glittering double row. Yet 
gallus Mr. Fly, from the U. S. A., walks debon- 
airly in, and out conies Monsieur Spider, ably 
seconded by Madame Spiderette; and between 
them they despoil him with the utmost dispatch. 
When he is not being mulcted for large sums he 
is being nicked for small ones. It is tip, brother, 
tip, and keep right on tipping. 

I heard a story of an American who spent a 
month in Paris, taking in the sights and being 
taken in by them, and another month motoring 
through the country. At length he reached the 
port whence he was to sail for home. He went 
aboard the steamer and saw to it that his be- 
longings were properly stored ; and in the privacy 
of his stateroom he sat down to take an inven- 
tory of his letter of credit, now reduced to a 
wan and wasted specter of its once plethoric self. 
In the midst of casting-up he heard the signal 
for departure; and so he went topside of the 
ship and, stationing himself on the promenade 
deck alongside the gang-plank, he raised his 
voice and addressed the assembled multitude on 
the pier substantially as follows: 

"If" — these were his words — "if there is a 
single, solitary individual in this fair land who 
has not touched me for something of value — if 
there be in all France a man, woman or child 
who has not been tipped by me — let him, her or 
it speak now or forever after hold their peace; 
because, know ye all men by these presents, I 
[ 260 ] 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



am about to go away from here and if I stay- 
in my right mind I'm not coming back!" 

And several persons were badly hurt in the 
crush; but they were believed afterward to have 
been repeaters. 

I thought this story was overdrawn, but, after 
traveling over somewhat the same route which 
this fellow countryman had taken, I came to 
the conclusion that it was no exaggeration, but 
a true bill in all particulars. On the night of 
our second day in Paris we went to a theater to 
see one of the topical revues, in which Paris is 
supposed to excel; and for sheer dreariness and 
blatant vulgarity Paris revues do, indeed, excel 
anything of a similar nature as done in either 
England or in America, which is saying quite 
a mouthful. 

In the French revue the members of the chorus 
reach their artistic limit in costuming when they 
dance forth from the wings wearing short and 
shabby undergarments over soiled pink fleshings 
and any time the dramatic interest begins to 
run low and gurgle in the pipes a male comedian 
pumps it up again by striking or kicking a 
woman. But to kick her is regarded as much the 
more whimsical conceit. This invariably sets 
the audience rocking with uncontrollable merri- 
ment. Howsomever, I am not writing a critique 
of the merits of the performance. If I were I 
should say that to begin with the title of the 
piece was wrong. It should have been called 
Lapsus Lingerie — signifying as the Latins would 
[261 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



say, "A Mere Slip." At this moment I am 
concerned with what happened upon our en- 
trance. 

At the door a middle-aged female, who was 
raising a natty mustache, handed us programs. 
I paid her for the programs and tipped her. 
She turned us over to a stout brunette lady who 
was cultivating a neat and flossy pair of mutton- 
chops. This person escorted us down the aisle 
to where our seats were; so I tipped her. Along- 
side our seats stood a third member of the sister- 
hood, chiefly distinguished from her confreres by 
the fact that she was turning out something very 
fetching in the way of a brown vandyke; and 
after we were seated she continued to stand 
there, holding forth her hand toward me, palm 
up and fingers extended in the national gesture, 
and saying something in her native tongue very 
rapidly. Incidentally she was blocking the path 
of a number of people who had come down the 
aisle immediately behind us. 

I thought possibly she desired to see our 
coupons, so I hauled them out and exhibited 
them. She shook her head at that and gabbled 
faster than ever. It next occurred to me that 
perhaps she wanted to furnish us with programs 
and was asking in advance for the money with 
which to pay for them. I explained to her that 
I already secured programs from her friend with 
the mustache. I did this mainly in English , but 
partly in French— at least I employed the cor- 
rect French word for program, which is pro- 
[262] 



.i 




SHE HAD NOT DONE ANYTHING TO EARN A TIP THAT I COULD SEE 



,f 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



gramme. To prove my case I pulled the two 
programs from m^y pocket and showed them to 
her. She continued to shake her head with great 
emphasis, babbling on at an increased speed. 
The situation was beginning to verge on the 
embarrassing when a light dawned on me. She 
wanted a tip, that was it! She had not done 
anything to earn a tip that I could see; and 
unless one had been reared in the barbering 
business she was not particularly attractive to 
look on, and even then only in a professional 
aspect; but I tipped her and bade her begone, 
and straightway she bewent, satisfied and smil- 
ing. From that moment on I knew my book. 
When in doubt I tipped one person — the person 
nearest to me. When in deep doubt I tipped 
two or more persons. And all was well. 

On the next evening but one I had another 
lesson, which gave me further insight into the 
habits and customs of these gay and gladsome 
Parisians. We were completing a round of the 
all-night cafes and cabarets. There were four 
of us. Briefly, we had seen the Dead Rat, the 
Abbey, the Bal Tabarin, the Red Mill, Maxim's, 
and the rest of the lot to the total number of 
perhaps ten or twelve. We had listened to bad 
singing, looked on bad dancing, sipped gingerly 
at bad drinks, and nibbled daintily at bad food ; 
and the taste of it all was as grit and ashes in 
our mouths. We had learned for ourselves that 
the much-vaunted gay life of Paris was just as 
sad and sordid and sloppy and unsavory as the 
[265] 



EUROPE REVISED 



so-called gay life of any other city with a lesser 
reputation for gay life and gay livers, A scrap 
of the gristle end of the New York Tenderloin; 
a suggestion of a certain part of New Orleans; a 
short cross section of the Levee, in Chicago; 
a dab of the Barbary Coast of San Francisco in 
its old, unexpurgated days ; a touch of Piccadilly 
Circus in London, after midnight, with a top 
dressing of Gehenna the Unblest — it had seemed 
to us a compound of these ingredients, with a 
distinctive savor of what was essentially Gallic 
permeating through it like garlic through a 
stew. We had had enough. Even though we 
had attended only as onlookers and seekers after 
local color, we felt that we had a-plenty of on- 
looking and entirely too much of local color; 
we felt that we should all go into retreat for a 
season of self-purification to rid our persons of 
the one and take a bath in formaldehyde to 
rinse our memories clean of the other. But the 
ruling spirit of the expedition pointed out that 
the evening would not be complete without a 
stop at a cafe that had — so he said — an inter- 
national reputation for its supposed sauciness 
and its real Bohemian atmosphere, whatever 
that might be. Overcome by his argument we 
piled into a cab and departed thither. 

This particular cafe was found, in its physical 
aspects, to be typical of the breed and district. 
It was small, crowded, overheated, underlighted, 
and stuffy to suffocation with the mingled aro- 
mas of stale drink and cheap perfume. As we 
[266 1 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



entered a wrangle was going on among a group 
of young Frenchmen picturesquely attired as 
art students — almost a sure sign that they were 
not art students. An undersized girl dressed in 
a shabby black-and-yellow frock was doing a 
Spanish dance on a cleared space in the middle 
of the floor. We knew her instantly for a Span- 
ish dancer, because she had a fan in one hand 
and a pair of castanets in the other. Another 
girl, dressed as a pierrot, was waiting to do her 
turn when the Spanish dancer finished. Weari- 
ness showed through the lacquer of thick cos- 
metic on her peaked little face. An orchestra of 
three pieces sawed wood steadily; and at in- 
tervals, to prove that these were gay and 
blithesome revels, somebody connected with the 
establishment threw small, party-colored balls 
of celluloid about. But what particularly caught 
our attention was the presence in a far corner 
of two little darkies in miniature dress suits, 
both very wally of eye, very brown of skin, and 
very shaved as to head, huddled together there 
as though for the poor comfort of physical con- 
tact. As soon as they saw us they left their 
place and sidled up, tickled beyond measure to 
behold American faces and hear American 
voices. 

They belonged, it seemed, to a troupe of 
jubilee singers who had been imported from the 
States for the delectation of French audiences. 
At night, after their work at a vaudeville the- 
ater was done, the members of their company 
[267 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



were paired off and sent about to the cafes to 
earn their keep by singing ragtime songs and 
dancing buck dances. These two were desper- 
ately, pathetically homesick. One of them 
blinked back the tears when he told us, with 
the plaintive African quaver in his voice, how 
long they had been away from their own country 
and how happy they would be to get back to 
it again. 

"We suttin'ly is glad to heah somebody talk- 
in' de reg'lar New 'Nited States talk, same as 
we does," he said. "We gits mighty tired of 
all dis yere French jabberin'!" 

"Yas, suh," put in his partner; "dey meks a 
mighty fuss over cullud folks over yere; but 
'tain't noways lak home. I comes from Bum- 
min'ham, Alabama, myse'f. Does you gen'le- 
men know anybody in Bummin'ham?" 

They were the first really wholesome creatures 
who had crossed our paths that night. They 
crowded up close to us and there they stayed 
until we left, as grateful as a pair of friendly 
puppies for a word or a look. Presently, though, 
something happened that made us forget these 
small dark compatriots of ours. We had had 
sandwiches all round and a bottle of wine. When 
the waiter brought the check it fell haply into 
the hands of the one person in our party who 
knew French and — what was an even more 
valuable accomplishment under the present cir- 
cumstances — knew the intricate French system 
of computing a bill. He ran a pencil down the 
[268 1 




TRY AS HARD AS YOU PLEASE TO SEE THE REAL PARIS, THE PARIS 
OF SMALL, MEAN GRAFT INTRUDES ON YOXJ 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



figures. Then he consulted the price hst on the 
menu and examined the label on the neck of 
the wine bottle, and then he gave a long whistle. 

"What's the trouble.?" asked one of us. 

"Oh, not much!" he said. "We had a bottle 
of wine priced at eighteen francs and they have 
merely charged us twenty-four francs for it — - 
six francs overcharge on that one item alone. 
The total for the sandwiches should have been 
six francs, and it is put down at ten francs. 
And here, away down at the bottom, I find a 
mysterious entry of four francs, which seems to 
have no bearing on the case at all — unless it be 
that they just simply need the money. I ex- 
pected to be skinned somewhat, but I object to 
being peeled. I'm afraid, at the risk of appear- 
ing mercenary, that we'll have to ask our friend 
for a recount." 

He beckoned the waiter to him and fired a 
volley of rapid French in the waiter's face. The 
waiter batted his eyes and shrugged his shoul- 
ders; then reversing the operation he shrugged 
his eyelids and batted his shoulderblades, mean- 
time endeavoring volubly to explain. Our friend 
shoved the check into his hands and waved him 
away. He was back again in a minute with the 
account corrected. That is, it was corrected to 
the extent that the wine item had been reduced 
to twenty-one francs and the sandwiches to 
eight francs. 

By now our paymaster was as hot as a hornet. 
His gorge rose — his freeborn, independent Amer- 
[271] 



EUROPE REVISED 



ican gorge. It rose clear to the ceiling and threw 
off sparks and red clinkers. He sent for the 
manager. The manager came, all bows and 
graciousness and rumply shirtfront; and when 
he heard what was to be said he became all 
apologies and indignation. He regretted more 
than words could tell that the American gentle- 
men who deigned to patronize his restaurant 
had been put to annoyance. The gargon — here 
he turned and burned up that individual with a 
fiery sideglance — was a debased idiot and the 
misbegotten son of a yet greater and still more 
debased idiot. The cashier was a green hand 
and an imbecile besides. It was incredible, im- 
possible, that the overcharging had been done 
deliberately; that was inconceivable. But the 
honor of his establishment was at stake. They 
should both, gargon and cashier, be discharged 
on the spot. First, however, he would rectify 
all mistakes. Would monsieur intrust the miser- 
able addition to him for a moment, for one short 
moment? Monsieur would and did. 

This time the amount was made right and our 
friend handed over in payment a fifty-franc 
note. With his own hands the manager brought 
back the change. Counting it over, the payee 
found it five francs short. Attention being di- 
rected to this error the manager became more 
apologetic and more explanatory than ever, and 
supplied the deficiency with a shiny new five- 
franc piece from his own pocket. And then, 
when we had gone away from there and had 
[272] 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



traveled a homeward mile or two, our friend 
found that the new shiny five-franc piece was 
counterfeit — as false a thing as that manager's 
false smile. We had bucked the unbeatable 
system, and we had lost. 

Earlier that same evening we spent a gloom- 
laden quarter of an hour in another cafe — one 
which owes its fame and most of its American 
customs to the happy circumstance that in a 
certain famous comic opera produced a few years 
ago a certain popular leading man sang a song 
extolling its fascinations. The man who wrote 
the song must have had a full-flowered and glam- 
orous imagination, for he could see beauty where 
beauty was not. To us there seemed nothing 
particularly fanciful about the place except the 
prices they charged for refreshments. However, 
something unusual did happen there once. It 
was not premeditated though; the proprietor 
had nothing to do with it. Had he known what 
was about to occur undoubtedly he would have 
advertised it in advance and sold tickets for it. 

By reason of circumstances over which he had 
no control, but which had mainly to do with a 
locked-up wardrobe, an American of convivial 
mentality was in his room at his hotel one 
evening, fairly consumed with loneliness. Above 
all things he desired to be abroad amid the life 
and gayety of the French capital; but unfor- 
tunately he had no clothes except boudoir 
clothes, and no way of getting any, either, 
which made the situation worse. He had al- 
[ 273 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



ready tried the telephone in a vain effort to 
communicate with a ready-made clothing es- 
tablishment in the Rue St.-Honore. Naturally 
he had failed, as he knew he would before he 
tried. Among Europeans the telephone is not 
the popular and handy adjunct of every-day 
life it is among us. The English have small use 
for it because it is, to start with, a wretched 
Yankee invention; besides, an Englishman in a 
hurry takes a cab, as his father before him did 
— takes the same cab his father took, if possible 
— and the Latin races dislike telephone conversa- 
tions because the gestures all go to absolute 
waste. The French telephone resembles a din- 
gus for curling the hair. You wrap it round 
your head, with one end near your mouth and 
the other end near your ear, and you yell in it a 
while and curse in it a while; and then you slam 
it down and go and send a messenger. The hero 
of the present tale, however, could not send a 
messenger — the hotel people had their orders to 
the contrary from one who was not to be diso- 
beyed. 

Finally in stark desperation, maddened by the 
sounds of sidewalk revelry that filtered up to 
him intermittently, he incased his feet in bed- 
room slippers, slid a dressing gown over his 
pajamas, and negotiated a successful escape 
from the hotel by means of a rear way. Once 
in the open he climbed into a handy cab and 
was driven to the cafe of his choice, it being the 
same cafe mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago. 
[274 1 



.f 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



Through a side entrance he made a hasty and 
unhindered entrance into this place — not that 
he would have been barred under any circum- 
stances, inasmuch as he had brought a roll with 
him. A person with a cluster of currency on 
hand is always suitably dressed in Paris, no 
matter if he has nothing else on; and this 
man had brought much ready cash with him. 
He could have gone in fig-leaved like Eve, or 
fig-leafless like September Morn, it being remem- 
bered that as between these two, as popularly 
depicted. Morn wears even less than Eve. So 
he whisked in handily, and when he had hidden 
the lower part of himself under a table he felt 
quite at home and proceeded to have a large 
and full evening. 

Soon there entered another American, and by 
that mental telepathy which inevitably attracts 
like-spirit to like-spirit he was drawn to the spot 
where the first American sat. He introduced 
himself as one feeling the need of congenial com- 
panionship, and they shook hands and exchanged 
names, and the first man asked the second man 
to be seated ; so they sat together and had some- 
thing together, and then something more to- 
gether; and as the winged moments flew they 
grew momentarily more intimate. Finally the 
newcomer said: 

"This seems a pretty lachrymose shop. Sup- 
pose we go elsewhere and look for some real 
doings." 

"Your proposition interests me strangely," 
[275 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



said the first man; "but there are two reasons 
— both good ones — why I may not fare forth 
with you. Look under the table and you'll 
see 'em." 

The second man looked and comprehended, 
for he was a married man himself; and he 
grasped the other's hand in warm and comforting 
sympathy. 

"Old Man," he said — for they had already 
reached the Old Man stage — "don't let that 
worry you. Why, I've got more pants than any 
man with only one set of legs has any right to 
have. I've got pants that've never been worn. 
You stay right here and don't move until I 
come back. My hotel is just round the corner 
from here." 

No sooner said than done. He went and in 
a surprisingly short time was back, bearing spare 
trousers with him. Beneath the shielding pro- 
tection of the table draperies the succored one 
slipped them on, and they were a perfect fit. 
Now he was ready to go where adventure might 
await them. They tarried, though, to finish the 
last bottle. 

Over the rim of his glass the second man ven- 
tured an opinion on a topic of the day. Instantly 
the first man challenged him. It seemed to him 
inconceivable that a person with intelligence 
enough to have amassed so many pairs of trous- 
ers should harbor such a delusion. He begged 
of his new-found friend to withdraw the state- 
ment, or at least to abate it. The other man 
[276 1 



THAT GAY PARESIS 



was sorry, but he simply could not do it. He 
stood ready to concede almost anything else, 
but on this particular point he was adamant; in 
fact, adamant was in comparison with him as 
pliable as chewing taffy. Much as he regretted 
it, he could not modify his assertion by so much 
as one brief jot or one small tittle without 
violating the consistent principles of a consistent 
life. He felt that way about it. All his family 
felt that way about it. 

"Then, sir," said the first man with a rare 
dignity, "I regret to wound your f clings; but 
my sensibilities are such that I cannot accept, 
even temporarily, the use of a pair of trousers 
from the loan collection of a person who enter- 
tains such false and erroneous conceptions. I 
have the pleasure, sir, of wishing you good 
night." 

With these words he shucked off the borrowed 
habiliments and slammed them into the abashed 
bosom of the obstinate stranger and went back 
to his captivity — pantless, 'tis true, but with 
his honor unimpaired. 



[277] 



CHAPTER XV 
SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 



^ I ^HE majority of these all-night places 
i in Paris are singularly and monoto- 

JL nously alike. In the early hours of the 
evening the musicians rest from their 
labors ; the regular habitues lay aside their air of 
professional abandon; with true French frugality 
the lights burn dim and low. But anon sounds 
the signal from the front of the house. Strike 
up the band; here comes a sucker! Somebody 
resembling ready money has arrived. The lights 
flash on, the can-canners take the floor, the 
gargons flit hither and yon, and all is excitement. 

Enter the opulent American gentleman. Half 
a dozen functionaries greet him rapturously, 
bowing before his triumphant progress. Others 
relieve him of his hat and his coat, so that he 
cannot escape prematurely. A whole reception 
committee escorts him to a place of honor facing 
the dancing arena. The natives of the quarter 
stand in rows in the background, drinking beer 
or nothing at all; but the distinguished stranger 
[278] 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

sits at a front table and is served with cham- 
pagne, and champagne only. It is inferior 
champagne; but because it is labeled American 
Brut — whatever that may denote — and because 
there is a poster on the bottle showing the 
American flag in the correct colors, he pays 
several times its proper value for it. From far 
corners and remote recesses coryphees and court 
jesters swarm forth to fawn on him, bask in his 
presence, glory in his smile — and sell him some- 
thing. The whole thing is as mercenary as pass- 
ing the hat. Cigarette girls, flower girls and 
bonbon girls, postcard venders and confetti dis- 
pensers surround him impenetrably, taking him 
front, rear, by the right flank and the left; and 
they shove their wares in his face and will not 
take No for an answer; but they will take any- 
thing else. 

Two years ago at a hunting camp in North 
Carolina, I thought I had met the creature with 
the most acute sense of hearing of any living 
thing. I refer to Pearl, the mare. Pearl was 
an elderly mare, white in color and therefore 
known as Pearl. She was most gentle and kind. 
She was a reliable family animal too — had a 
colt every year — but in her affiliations she was 
a pronounced reactionary. She went through 
life listening for somebody to say Whoa! Her 
ears were permanently slanted backward on 
that very account. She belonged to the Whoa 
Lodge, which has a large membership among 
humans. 

[279] 



EUROPE REVISED 



Riding behind Pearl you uttered the tahs- 
manic word in the thinnest thread of a whisper 
and instantly she stopped. You could spell 
Whoa! on your fingers, and she would stop. 
You could take a pencil and a piece of paper 
out of your pocket and write down Whoa! — 
and she would stop; but, compared with a sam- 
ple assortment of these cabaret satellites, Pearl 
would have seemed deaf as a post. Clear across 
a hundred-foot dance-hall they catch the sound 
of a restless dollar turning over in the fob 
pocket of an American tourist. 

And they come a-running and get it. Under 
the circumstances it requires self-hypnotism of 
a high order, and plenty of it, to make an Ameri- 
can think he is enjoying himself. Still, he fre- 
quently attains to that happy comsummation. 
To begin with, is he not in Gay Paree.^^ — as it is 
familiarly called in Rome Center and all points 
West? He is! Has he not kicked over the traces 
and cut loose with intent to be oh, so naughty 
for one naughty night of his life? Such are the 
facts. Finally, and herein lies the proof con- 
clusive, he is spending a good deal of money 
and is getting very little in return for it. Well, 
then, what better evidence is required? Any 
time he is paying four or five prices for what he 
buys and does not particularly need it — or want 
it after it is bought— the average American can 
delude himself into the belief that he is having a 
brilliant evening. This is a racial trait worthy 
of the scientific consideration of Professor Hugo 
[280] 



J 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

Munsterberg and other students of our national 
psychology. So far the Munsterberg school has 
overlooked it — but the canny Parisians have 
not. They long ago studied out every quirk and 
wriggle of it, and capitalized it to their own 
purpose. Liberality! Economy! Frugality! — 
there they are, everywhere blazoned forth — Lib- 
erality for you, Economy and Frugality for 
them. Could anything on earth be fairer than 
that.? 

Even so, the rapturous reception accorded to 
a North American pales to a dim and flickery 
puniness alongside the perfect riot and whirl- 
wind of enthusiasm which marks the entry into 
an all-night place of a South American. Time 
was when, to the French understanding, exuber- 
ant prodigality and the United States were terms 
synonymous; that time has passed. Of recent 
years our young kinsmen from the sister repub- 
lics nearer the Equator and the Horn have in- 
vaded Paris in numbers, bringing their impulsive 
temperaments and their bankrolls with them. 
Thanks to these young cattle kings, these callow 
silver princes from Argentina and Brazil, from 
Peru and from Ecuador, a new and more gor- 
geous standard for money wasting has been estab- 
lished. You had thought, perchance, there was 
no rite and ceremonial quite so impressive as a 
head waiter in a Fifth Avenue restaurant squeez- 
ing the blood out of a semi-raw canvasback in 
a silver duck press for a free spender from Butte 
or Pittsburgh. I, too, had thought that; but 
[281 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



wait, just wait, until you have seen a maitre 
d'hotel on the Avenue de I'Opera, with the 
smile of the canary-fed cat on his face, standing 
just behind a hide-and-tallow baron or a guano 
duke from somewhere in Far Spiggottyland, 
watching this person as he wades into the fresh 
fruit — checking off on his fingers each blushing 
South African peach at two francs the bite, and 
each purple cluster of hothouse grapes at one 
franc the grape. That spectacle, believe me, is 
worth the money every time. 

There is just one being whom the dwellers of 
the all-night quarter love and revere more deeply 
than they love a downy, squabbling scion of 
some rich South American family, and that is a 
large, broad negro pugilist with a mouthful of gold 
teeth and a shirtfront full of yellow diamonds. 
To an American — and especially to an American 
who was reared below Mason and Dixon's justly 
popular Line — it is indeed edifying to behold a 
black heavyweight f ourthrater from South Clark 
Street, Chicago, taking his ease in a smart cafe, 
entirely surrounded by worshipful boulevardiers, 
both male and female. 

Now, as I remarked at an earlier stage of 
these observations, there is another Paris be- 
sides this — a Paris of history, of art, of architec- 
ture, of literature, of refinement; a Paris inhab- 
ited by a people with a pride in their past, a 
pluck in their present, and a faith in their future; 
a Paris of kindly aristocrats, of thrifty, pious 
plain people; a Paris of students and savants and 
[ 282 ] 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

scientists, of great actors and great scientists 
and great dramatists. There is one Paris that 
might well be burned to its unclean roots, and 
another Paris that will be glorified in the minds 
of mankind forever. And it would be as unfair 
to say that the Paris which comes flaunting its 
tinsel of vice and pinchbeck villainy in the casual 
tourist's face is the real Paris, as it would be for 
a man from the interior of the United States to 
visit New York and, after interviewing one 
Bowery bouncer, one Tenderloin cabman, and 
one Broadway ticket speculator, go back home 
and say he had met fit representatives of the 
predominant classes of New York society and 
had found them unfit. Yes, it would be even 
more unfair. For the alleged gay life of New 
York touches at some point of contact or other 
the lives of most New Yorkers, whereas in Paris 
there are numbers of sane and decent folks who 
seem to know nothing except by hearsay of what 
goes on after dark in the Montmartre district. 
Besides, no man in the course of a short and 
crowded stay may hope to get under the skin 
of any community, great or small. He merely 
skims its surface cuticle; he sees no deeper than 
the pores and the hair-roots. The arteries, the 
frame, the real tissue-structure remain hidden 
to him. Therefore the pity seems all the greater 
that, to the world at large, the bad Paris should 
mean all Paris. It is that other and more whole- 
some Paris which one sees — a light-hearted, 
good-natured, polite and courteous Paris — when 
[283] 



EUROPE REVISED 



one, biding his time and choosing the proper 
hour and proper place, goes abroad to seek it out. 
For the stranger who does at least a part of his 
sight-seeing after a rational and orderly fashion, 
there are pictures that will live in the memory 
always: the Madeleine, with the flower market 
just alongside; the green and gold woods of the 
Bois de Boulogne; the grandstand of the race- 
course at Longchamp on a fair afternoon in the 
autumn; the Opera at night; the promenade of 
the Champs-Elysees on a Sunday morning after 
church; the Gardens of the Tuileries; the won- 
derful circling plaza of the Place Vendome, 
where one may spend a happy hour if the 
maniacal taxi-drivers deign to spare one's life 
for so unaccountably long a period; the arcades 
of the Rue de Rivoli, with their exquisite shops, 
where every other shop is a jeweler's shop and 
every jeweler's shop is just like every other 
jeweler's shop — which fact ceases to cause won- 
der when one learns that, with a few notable 
exceptions, all these shops carry their wares on 
commission from the stocks of the same manu- 
facturing jewelers; the old He de la Cite, with 
the second-hand bookstalls stretching along the 
quay, and the Seine placidly meandering be- 
tween its man-made, man-ruled banks. Days 
spent here seem short days; but that may be 
due in some part to the difference between our 
time and theirs. In Paris, you know, the day 
ends five or six hours earlier than it does in 
America. 

[ 284 1 



M^'i^tMii^^ 




THE PARIS WHICH THE CASUAL MALE VISITOR SAMPLES IS THE MOST OVERRATED 
THING ON EARTH AND THE MOST COSTLY 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

The two Palaces of Fine Arts are fine enough; 
and finer still, on beyond them, is the great Pont 
Alexandre III; but, to my untutored instincts, 
all three of these, with their dumpings of flag 
standards and their grouping of marble allego- 
ries, which are so aching-white to the eye in 
the sunlight, seemed overly suggestive of a 
World's Fair as we know such things in America. 
Seeing them I knew where the architects who 
designed the main approaches and the courts of 
honor for all our big expositions got their notions 
for color schemes and statuary effects. I liked 
better those two ancient triumphal arches of 
St. -Martin and St.-Denis on the Boulevard St.- 
Denis, and much better even than these the 
tremendous sweep of the Place de la Concorde, 
which is one of the finest squares in the world, 
and the one with the grimmest, bloodiest his- 
tory, I reckon. 

The Paris to which these things properly ap- 
pertain is at its very best and brightest on a 
sunny Sunday afternoon in the parks where 
well-to-do people drive or ride, and their chil- 
dren play among the trees under the eyes of 
nursemaids in the quaint costumes of Normandy, 
though, for all I know, it may be Picardy. Else- 
where in these parks the not-so-well-to-do gather 
in great numbers ; some drinking harmless sirupy 
drinks at the gay little refreshment kiosks; some 
packing themselves about the man who has 
tamed the tree sparrows until they come at his 
call and hive in chattering, fluttering swarms on 
[287] 



EUROPE REVISED 



his head and his arms and shoulders; some ap- 
plauding a favorite game of the middle classes 
that is being played in every wide and open 
space. I do not know its name — could not find 
anybody who seemed to know its name — but 
this game is a kind of glorified battledore and 
shuttlecock played with a small, hard ball capa- 
ble of being driven high and far by smartly 
administered strokes of a hide-headed, rimmed 
device shaped like a tambourine. It would seem 
also to be requisite to its proper playing that 
each player shall have a red coat and a full 
spade beard, and a tremendous amount of speed 
and skill. If the ball gets lost in anybody's 
whiskers I think it counts ten for the opposing 
side; but I do not know the other rules. 

A certain indefinable, unmistakably Gallic 
flavor or piquancy savors the life of the people; 
it disappears only when they cease to be their 
own natural selves. A woman novelist, Ameri- 
can by birth, but a resident of several years in 
Paris, told me a story illustrative of this. The 
incident she narrated was so typical that it 
could never have happened except in Paris, I 
thought. She said she was one of a party who 
went one night to dine at a little cafe much fre- 
quented by artists and art students. The host 
was himself an artist of reputation. As they 
dined there entered a tall, gloomy figure of a 
man with a long, ugly face full of flexible wrin- 
kles; such a figure and such a face as instantly 
commanded their attention. This man slid into 
[288] 



.f 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

a seat at a table near their table and had a 
frugal meal. He had reached the stage of demi- 
tasse and cigarette when he laid down cup and 
cigarette and, fetching a bit of cardboard and a 
crayon out of his pocket, began putting down 
lines and shadings; between strokes he covertly 
studied the profile of the man who was giving 
the dinner party. Not to be outdone the artist 
hauled out his drawing pad and pencil and made 
a quick sketch of the long-faced man. Both 
finished their jobs practically at the same mo- 
ment; and, rising together with low bows, they 
exchanged pictures — each had done a rattling 
good caricature of the other — and then, without 
a word having been spoken or a move made 
toward striking up an acquaintance, each man 
sat him down again and finished his dinner. 

The lone diner departed first. When the 
party at the other table had had their coffee 
they went round the corner to a little circus — 
one of the common type of French circuses, 
which are housed in permanent wooden build- 
ings instead of under tents. Just as they en- 
tered, the premier clown, in spangles and peak 
cap, bounded into the ring. Through the coat- 
ing of powder on it they recognized his wrinkly, 
mobile face: it was the sketch-making stranger 
whose handiwork they had admired not half an 
hour before. 

Hearing the tale we went to the same circus 
and saw the same clown. His ears were painted 
bright red — the red ear is the inevitable badge 
[289] 



EUROPE REVISED 



of the French clown — and he had as a foil for his 
funning a comic countryman known on the pro- 
gram asAuguste, which is the customary name 
of all comic countrymen in France; and, though 
I knew only at second hand of his sketch-making 
abilities, I am willing to concede that he was 
the drollest master of pantomime I ever saw. 
On leaving the circus, very naturally we went 
to the cafe where the first part of the little dinner 
comedy had been enacted. We encountered bo 
artists, professional or amateur, of blacklead and 
bristol board, but we met a waiter there who 
was an artist — in his line. I ordered a cigar of 
him, specifying that the cigar should be of a 
brand made in Havana and popular in the 
States. He brought one cigar on a tray. In size 
and shape and general aspect it seemed to an- 
swer the required specifications. The little belly 
band about its dark-brown abdomen was cer- 
tainly orthodox and regular; but no sooner had 
I lit it and taken a couple of puffs than I was 
seized with the conviction that something had 
crawled up that cigar and died. So I examined 
it more closely and I saw then that it was a bad 
French cigar, artfully adorned about its middle 
with a second-hand band,^which the waiter had 
picked up after somebody else had plucked it 
off one of the genuine articles and had treasured 
it, no doubt, against the coming of some un- 
sophisticated patron such as I. And I doubt 
whether that could have happened anywhere 
except in Paris either. That is just it, you see. 
[290] 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

Try as hard as you please to see the real Paris, 
the Paris of petty larceny and small, mean graft 
intrudes on you and takes a peck at your purse. 

Go where you will, you cannot escape it. You 
journey, let us assume, to the Tomb of Napoleon, 
under the great dome that rises behind the wide- 
armed Hotel des Invalides. From a splendid 
rotunda you look down to where, craftily touched 
by the softened lights streaming in from high 
above, that great sarcophagus stands housing 
the bones of Bonaparte; and above the entrance 
to the crypt you read the words from the last 
will and testament of him who sleeps here: "I 
desire that my ashes may repose on the banks 
of the Seine, among the French people I have 
so well loved." And you reflect that he so well 
loved them that, to glut his lusting after power 
and yet more power, he led sundry hundreds of 
thousands of them to massacre and mutilation 
and starvation; but that is the way of world- 
conquerors the world over and has absolutely 
nothing to do with this tale. The point I am 
trying to get at is, if you can gaze unmoved at 
this sepulcher you are a clod. And if you can 
get away from its vicinity without being held 
up and gouged by small grafters you are a 
wonder. 

Not tombs nor temples nor sanctuaries are 
safe from the profane and polluting feet of the 
buzzing plague of them. You journey miles 
away from this spot to the great cemetery of 
Pere Lachaise. You trudge past seemingly un- 
[291 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



ending, constantly unfolding miles of monuments 
and mausoleums; you view the storied urns and 
animated busts that mark the final resting- 
places of France's illustrious dead. And as you 
marvel that France should have had so many 
illustrious dead, and that so many of them at 
this writing should be so dead, out from behind 
De Musset's vault or Marshal Ney's comes a 
snoopy, smirky wretch to pester you to the 
desperation that is red-eyed and homicidal with 
his picture post cards and his execrable wooden 
carvings. 

You fight the persistent vermin off and flee 
for refuge to that shrine of every American who 
knows his Mark Twain — the joint grave* of Hell 
Loisy and Abie Lard t and lo, in the very shadow 
of it there lurks a blood brother to the first pest! 
I defy you to get out of that cemetery without 
buying something of no value from one or the 
other, or both of them. The Communists made 
their last stand in Pere Lachaise. So did I. 
They went down fighting. Same here. They 
were licked to a frazzle. Ditto, ditto. 

Next, we will say, Notre Dame draws you. 
Within, you walk the clattering flags of its dim, 
long aisles; v/ithout, you peer aloft to view its 
gargoyled waterspouts, leering down like night- 
mares caught in the very act of leering and con- 
gealed into stone. The spirit of the place pos- 

* Being French, and therefore economical, those two are, as 
it were, splitting one tomb between them, 
t Popular tourist pronunciation. 

[ 292] 



.f 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

sesses you; you conjure up a vision of the little 
maid Esmeralda and the squat hunchback who 
dwelt in the tower above; and at the precise 
moment a foul vagabond pounces on you and, 
with a wink that is in itself an insult and a 
smile that should earn for him a kick for every 
inch of its breadth, he draws from beneath his 
coat a set of nasty photographs — things which 
no decent man could look at without gagging and 
would not carry about with him on his person 
for a million dollars in cash. By threats and 
hard words you drive him off; but seeing others 
of his kind drawing nigh you run away, with no 
particular destination in mind except to discover 
some spot, however obscure and remote, where 
the wicked cease from troubling and the weary 
may be at rest for a few minutes. You cross a 
bridge to the farther bank of the river and pres- 
ently you find yourself — at least I found myself 
there— in one of the very few remaining quarters 
of old Paris, as yet untouched by the scheme of 
improvement that is wiping out whatever is 
medieval and therefore unsanitary, and making 
it all over, modern and slick and shiny. 

Losing yourself — and with yourself your sense 
of the reality of things — you wander into a maze 
of tall, beetle-browed old houses with tiny win- 
dows that lower at you from under their dor- 
mered lids like hostile eyes. Above, on the attic 
ledges, are boxes of flowers and coops where 
caged larks and linnets pipe cheery snatches of 
song; and on beyond, between the eaves, which 
[293] 



EUROPE REVISED 



bend toward one another like gossips who would 
swap whispered confidences, is a strip of sky. 
Below are smells of age and dampness. And 
there is a rich, nutritious garlicky smell too; and 
against a jog in the wall a frowsy but picturesque 
rag-picker is asleep on a pile of sacks, with a big 
sleek cat asleep on his breast. I do not guarantee 
the rag-picker. He and his cat may have moved 
since I was there and saw them, although they 
had the look about them both of being perma- 
nent fixtures. 

You pass a little church, lolling and lopped 
with the weight of the years; and through its 
doors you catch a vista of old pillars and soft 
half-lights, and twinkling candles set upon the 
high altar. Not even the jimcrackery with 
which the Latin races dress up their holy places 
and the graves of their dead can entirely dispel 
its abiding, brooding air of peace and majesty. 
You linger a moment outside just such a tavern 
as a certain ragged poet of parts might have fre- 
quented the while he penned his versified inquiry 
which after all these centuries is not yet satis- 
factorily answered, touching on the approximate 
whereabouts of the snows that fell yesteryear 
and the roses that bloomed yesterweek. 

Midway of a winding alley you come to an 
ancient wall and an ancient gate crowned with 
the half -effaced quarterings of an ancient house, 
and you halt, almost expecting that the rusted 
hinges will creak a warning and the wooden 
halves begrudgingly divide, and that from under 
[294 1 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

the slewed arch will issue a most gallant swash- 
buckler with his buckles all buckled and his 
swash swashing; hence the name. 

At this juncture you feel a touch on your 
shoulder. You spin on your heel, feeling at your 
hip for an imaginary sword. But 'tis not Master 
Frangois Villon, in tattered doublet, with a son- 
net. Nor yet is it a jaunty blade, in silken 
cloak, with a challenge. It is your friend of the 
obscene photograph collection. He has followed 
you all the way from 1914 clear back into the 
Middle Ages, biding his time and hoping you 
will change your mind about investing in his 
nasty wares. 

With your wife or your sister you visit the 
Louvre. You look on the Winged Victory and 
admire her classic but somewhat bulky propor- 
tions, meantime saying to yourself that it cer- 
tainly must have been a mighty hard battle the 
lady won, because she lost her head and both 
arms in doing it. You tire of interminable por- 
traits of the Grand Monarch, showing him 
grouped with his wife, the Old-fashioned Square 
Upright; and his son, the Baby Grand; and his 
prime minister, the Lyre; and his brother, the 
Yellow Clarinet, and the rest of the orchestra. 
You examine the space on the wall where Mona 
Lisa is or is not smiling her inscrutable smile, 
depending on whether the open season for Mona 
Lisas has come or has passed. Wandering your 
weary way past acres of the works of Rubens, 
and miles of Titians, and townships of Corots, 
[295] 



EUROPE REVISED 



and ranges of Michelangelos, and quarter sec- 
tions of Raphaels, and government reserves of 
Leonardo da Vincis, you stray off finally into a 
side passage to see something else, leaving your 
wife or your sister behind in one of the main 
galleries. You are gone only a minute or two, 
but returning you find her furiously, helplessly 
angry and embarrassed; and on inquiry you 
learn she has been enduring the ordeal of being 
ogled by a small, wormy-looking creature who 
has gone without shaving for two or three years 
in a desperate endeavor to resemble a real man. 

Some day. somebody will take a squirt-gun 
and a pint of insect powder and destroy these 
little, hairy caterpillars who infest all parts of 
Paris and make it impossible for a respectable 
woman to venture on the streets unaccom- 
panied. 

Let us, for the further adornment and final 
elaboration of the illustration, say that you are 
sitting at one of the small round tables which 
make mushroom beds under the awnings along 
the boulevards. All about you are French peo- 
ple, enjoying themselves in an easy and a ration- 
al and an inexpensive manner. As for yourself, 
all you desire is a quiet half hour in which to 
read your paper, sip your coffee, and watch the 
shifting panorama of street life. That em- 
phatically is all you ask; merely that and a 
little privacy. Are you permitted to have it? 
You are not. 

Beggars beseech you to look on their aflSic- 
[ 296 ] 



SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE 

tions. Sidewalk venders cluster about you. 
And if you are smoking the spark of your cigar 
inevitably draws a full delegation of those 
moldy old whiskerados who follow the profession 
of collecting butts and quids. They hover about 
you, watchful as chicken hawks; and their bleary 
eyes envy you for each puff you take, until you 
grow uneasy and self-reproachful under their 
glare, and your smoke is spoiled for you. Very 
few men smoke well before an audience, even an 
audience of their own selection; so before your 
cigar is half finished you tdss it away, and while 
it is yet in the air the watchers leap forward and 
squabble under your feet for the prize. Then 
the winner emerges from the scramble and de- 
parts along the sidewalk to seek his next victim, 
with the still-smoking trophy impaled on his 
steel-pointed tool of trade. 

In desperation you rise up from there and flee 
away to your hotel and hide in your room, and 
lock and double-lock the doors, and begin to 
study timetables with a view to quitting Paris 
on the first train leaving for anywhere, the only 
drawback to a speedy consummation of this 
happy prospect being that no living creature 
can fathom the meaning of French timetables. 

It is not so much the aggregate amount of 
which they have despoiled you — it is the knowl- 
edge that every other person in Paris is seeking 
and planning to nick you for some sum, great 
or small; it is the realization that, by reason of 
your ignorance of the language and the customs 
[297] 



EUROPE REVISED 



of the land, you are at their mercy, and they 
have no mercy — that, as Walter Pater so suc- 
cinctly phrases it, that is what gets your goat — 
and gets it good! 

So you shake the dust from your feet — your 
own dust, not Paris' dust — and you depart per 
hired hack for the station and per train from the 
station. And as the train draws away from 
the trainshed you behold behind you two 
legends or inscriptions, repeated and reiterated 
everywhere on the walls of the French capital. 

One of them says: English Spoken Here! 

And the other says: Liberality! Economy! 
Frugality ! 



[298] 



CHAPTER XVI 
AS DONE IN LONDON 



LONDON is essentially a he-town, just as 
Paris is indubitably a she-town. That 
untranslatable, unmistakable some- 
thing which is not to be defined in 
the plain terms of speech, yet which sets its 
mark on any long-settled community, has 
branded them both — the one as being mascu- 
line, the other as being feminine. For Paris 
the lily stands, the conventionalized, feminized 
lily; but London is a lion, a shag-headed, 
heavy-pawed British lion. 

One thinks of Paris as a woman, rather pretty, 
somewhat regardless of morals and decidedly 
slovenly of person; craving admiration, but too 
indolent to earn it by keeping herself presentable; 
covering up the dirt on a piquant face with rice 
powder; wearing paste jewels in her earlobes in 
an effort to distract criticism from the fact that 
the ears themselves stand in need of soap and 
water. London, viewed in retrospect, seems a 
great, clumsy, slow-moving giant, with hair on 
[299] 



EUROPE REVISED 



his chest and soil under his nails; competent in 
the larger affairs and careless about the smaller 
ones; amply satisfied with himself and disdainful 
of the opinions of outsiders ; having all of a man's 
vices and a good share of his virtues; loving 
sport for sport's sake and power for its own 
sake and despising art for art's sake. 

You do not have to spend a week or a month 
or a year in either Paris or London to note these 
things. The distinction is wide enough to be 
seen in a day; yes, or in an hour. It shows in 
all the outer aspects. An overtowering majority 
of the smart shops in Paris cater to women; a 
large majority of the smart shops in London 
cater to men. It shows in their voices; for cities 
have voices just as individuals have voices. 
New York is not yet old enough to have found 
its own sex. It belongs still to the neuter gender. 
New York is not even a noun — it's a verb transi- 
tive; but its voice is a female voice, just as 
Paris' voice is. New York, like Paris, is full of 
strident, shrieking sounds, shrill outcries, hyster- 
ical babblings — a women's bridge-whist club at 
the hour of casting up the score; but London 
now is different. London at all hours speaks 
with a sustained, sullen, steady, grinding tone, 
never entirely sinking into quietude, never rising 
to acute discords. The sound of London rolls 
on like a river — a river that ebbs sometimes, 
but rarely floods above its normal banks; it im- 
presses one as the necessary breathing of a 
grunting and burdened monster who has a 
[300] 



AS DONE IN LONDON 



mighty job on his hands and is taking his own 
good time about doing it. 

In London, mind you, the newsboys do not 
shout their extras. They bear in their hands 
placards with black-typed announcements of the 
big news story of the day; and even these head- 
ings seem designed to soothe rather than to 
excite — saying, for example, such things as 
Special From Liner, in referring to a disaster at 
sea, and Meeting in Ulster, when meaning that 
the northern part of Ireland has gone on record 
as favoring civil war before home rule. 

The street venders do not bray on noisy 
trumpets or ring with bells or utter loud cries 
to advertise their wares. The policeman does 
not shout his orders out; he holds aloft the 
stripe-sleeved arm of authority and all London 
obeys. I think the reason why the Londoners 
turned so viciously on the suffragettes was not 
because of the things the suffragettes clamored 
for, but because they clamored for them so 
loudly. They jarred the public peace — that 
must have been it. 

I can understand why an adult American 
might go to Paris and stay in Paris and be 
satisfied with Paris, if he were a lover of art 
and millinery in all their branches; or why he 
might go to Berlin if he were studying music 
and municipal control; or to Amsterdam if he 
cared for cleanliness and new cheese; or to 
Vienna if he were concerned with surgery, light 
opera, and the effect on the human lungs of 
[301] 



EUROPE REVISED 



doing without fresh air for long periods of time; 
or to Rome if he were an antiquarian and in- 
terested in ancient Hfe; or to Naples if he were 
an entomologist and interested in insect life; or 
to Venice if he liked ruins with water round 
them; or to Padua if he liked ruins with no 
water anywhere near them. No: I'm blessed if 
I can think of a single good reason why a sane 
man should go to Padua if he could go any- 
where else. 

But I think I know, good and well, why a man 
might spend his whole vacation in London and 
enjoy every minute of it. For this old fogy, old 
foggy town of London is a man-sized town, and 
a man-run town; and it has a fascination of its 
own that is as much a part of it as London's 
grime is; or London's vastness and London's 
pettiness; or London's wealth and its stark pov- 
erty ; or its atrocious suburbs ; or its dirty, trade- 
fretted river; or its dismal back streets; or its 
still more dismal slums — or anything that is 
London's. 

To a man hailing from a land where every- 
thing is so new that quite a good deal of it has 
not even happened yet, it is a joyful thing to 
turn off a main-traveled road into one of the 
crooked byways in which the older parts of 
London abound, and suddenly to come, full face, 
on a house or a court or a pump which figured 
in epochal history or epochal literature of the 
English-speaking race. It is a still greater joy 
to find it — house or court or pump or what not 
[302] 




IN LONDON, MIND YOTJ, THE NEWSBOYS DO NOT SHOUT THEIR EXTRAS 



AS DONE IN LONDON 

— looking now pretty much as it must have 
looked when good Queen Bess, or little Dick 
Whittington, or Chaucer the scribe, or Shak- 
spere the player, came this way. It is fine to be 
riding through the country and pass a peaceful 
green meadow and inquire its name of your 
driver and be told, most offhandedly, that it is 
a place called Runnymede. Each time this 
happened to me I felt the thrill of a discoverer; 
as though I had been the first traveler to find 
these spots. 

I remember that through an open door I was 
marveling at the domestic economies of an Eng- 
lish barber shop. I use the word economies in 
this connection advisedly; for, compared with 
the average high-polished, sterilized and anti- 
septic barber shop of an American city, this 
shop seemed a torture cave. In London, pubs 
are like that, and some dentists' establishments 
and law offices — musty, fusty dens very unlike 
their Yankee counterparts. In this particular 
shop now the chairs were hard, wooden chairs; 
the looking-glass — you could not rightly call it 
a mirror — was cracked and bleary; and an ap- 
prentice boy went from one patron to another, 
lathering each face; and then the master fol- 
lowed after him, razor in hand, and shaved the 
waiting countenances in turn. Flies that looked 
as though they properly belonged in a livery 
stable were buzzing about; and there was a 
prevalent odor which made me think that all 
the sick pomade in the world had come hither 
[305 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



to spend its last declining hours. I said to my- 
self that this place would bear further study; 
that some day, when I felt particularly hardy 
and daring, I would come here and be shaved, 
and afterward would write a piece about it and 
sell it for money. So, the better to fix its loca- 
tion in my mind, I glanced up at the street sign 
and, behold! I was hard by Drury Lane, where 
Sweet Nelly once on a time held her court. 

Another time I stopped in front of a fruit- 
erer's, my eye having been caught by the pres- 
ence in his window of half a dozen draggled- 
looking, wilted roasting ears decorated with a 
placard reading as follows: 

American Maize or Indian Corn 
A Vegetable — To be Boiled and Then 

Eaten 

I was remarking to myself that these British- 
ers were surely a strange race of beings — that if 
England produced so delectable a thing as green 
corn we in America would import it by the ship- 
load and serve it on every table; whereas here 
it was so rare that they needs must label it as 
belonging to the vegetable kingdom, lest people 
should think it might be an animal — when I 
chanced to look more closely at the building 
occupied by the fruiterer and saw that it was 
an ancient house, half-timbered above the first 
floor, with a queer low-browed roof. Inquiring 
afterward I learned that this house dated 
straight back to Elizabethan days and still on 
[306] 



^^ 



AS DONE IN LONDON 



beyond for so many years that no man knew 
exactly how many; and I began to understand 
in a dim sort of way how and why it was these 
people held so fast to the things they had and 
cared so little for the things they had not. 

Better than by all the reading you have ever 
done you absorb a sense and realization of the 
splendor of England's past when you go to 
Westminster Abbey and stand — figuratively — 
with one foot on Jonson and another on Dry den; 
and if, overcome by the presence of so much 
dead-and-gone greatness, you fall in a fit you 
commit a trespass on the last resting-place of 
Macaulay or Clive, or somebody of equal con- 
sequence. More imposing even than Westmin- 
ster is St. Paul's. I am not thinking so much 
of the memorials or the tombs or the statues 
there, but of the tattered battleflags bearing the 
names of battles fought by the English in every 
crack and cranny of the world, from Quebec to 
Ladysmith, and from Lucknow to Khartum. 
Beholding them there, draped above the tombs, 
some faded but still intact, some mere clotted 
wisps of ragged silk clinging to blackened stand- 
ards, gives one an uplifting conception of the 
spirit that has sent the British soldier forth to 
girth the globe, never faltering, never slackening 
pace, never giving back a step to-day but that 
he took two steps forward to-morrow; never 
stopping — except for tea. 

The fool hath said in his heart that he would 
go to England and come away and write some- 
[307] 



EUROPE REVISED 



thing about his impressions, but never write a 
single, soHtary word about the Englishman's 
tea-drinking habit, or the Englishman's cricket- 
playing habit, or the Englishman's lack of 
a sense of humor. I was that fool. But it can- 
not be done. Lacking these things England 
would not be England. It would be Hamlet 
without Hamlet or the Ghost or the wicked 
Queen or mad Ophelia or her tiresome old pa; 
for most English life and the bulk of English 
conversation center about sporting topics, with 
the topic of cricket predominating. And at a 
given hour of the day the wheels of the empire 
stop, and everybody in the empire — from the 
king in the counting house counting up his 
money, to the maid in the garden hanging out 
the clothes — drops what he or she may be doing 
and imbibes tea until further orders. And what 
oceans of tea they do imbibe! 

There was an old lady who sat near us in a 
teashop one afternoon. As well as might be 
judged by one who saw her in a sitting posture 
only, she was no deeper than any other old lady 
of average dimensions; but in rapid succession 
she tilted five large cups of piping hot tea into 
herself and was starting on the sixth when we 
withdrew, stunned by the spectacle. She must 
have been fearfully long-waisted. I had a 
mental vision of her interior decorations — all 
fumed-oak wainscotings and buff -leather hang- 
ings. Still, I doubt whether their four-o'clock- 
tea habit is any worse than our five-o'clock- 
[308] 




GIVEN HOUR EVERYBODY IMBIBES TEA UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS 



AS DONE IN LONDON 



cocktail habit. It all depends, I suppose, on 
whether one prefers being tanned inside to being 
pickled. But we are getting bravely over our 
cocktail habit, as attested by figures and the 
visual evidences, while their tea habit is growing 
on them — so the statisticians say. 

As for the Englishman's sense of humor, or 
his lack of it, I judge that we Americans are 
partly wrong in our diagnosis of that phase of 
British character and partly right. Because he 
is slow to laugh at a joke, we think he cannot 
see the point of it without a diagram and a 
chart. What we do not take into consideration 
is that, through centuries of self-repression, the 
Englishman has so drilled himself into refraining 
from laughing in public — for fear, you see, of 
making himself conspicuous — it has become a 
part of his nature. Indeed, in certain quarters 
a prejudice against laughing under any circum- 
stances appears to have sprung up. 

I was looking one day through the pages of 
one of the critical English weeklies. Nearly all 
British weeklies are heavy, and this is the 
heaviest of the lot. Its editorial column alone 
weighs from twelve to eighteen pounds, and if 
you strike a man with a clubbed copy of it the 
crime is assault with a dull blunt instrument, 
with intent to kill. At the end of a ponderous 
review of the East Indian question I came on a 
letter written to the editor by a gentleman sign- 
ing himself with his own name, and reading in 
part as follows: 

[311] 



EUROPE REVISED 



Sir: Laughter is always vulgar and offensive. 
For instance, whatever there may be of pleasure 
in a theater — and there is not much — the place 
is made impossible by laughter. . . . No; it 
is very seldom that happiness is refined or pleas- 
ant to see — merriment that is produced by wine 
is false merriment, and there is no true merri- 
ment without it. . . . Laughter is profane, 
in fact, where it is not ridiculous. 

On the other hand the English in bulk will 
laugh at a thing which among us would bring 
tears to the most hardened cheek and incite our 
rebellious souls to mayhem and manslaughter. 
On a certain night we attended a musical show 
at one of the biggest London theaters. There 
was some really clever funning by a straight 
comedian, but his best efforts died a-borning; 
they drew but the merest ripple of laughter 
from the audience. Later there was a scene be- 
tween a sad person made up as a Scotchman 
and another equally sad person of color from 
the States. These times no English musical 
show is complete unless the cast includes a 
North American negro with his lips painted to 
resemble a wide slice of ripe watermelon, singing 
ragtime ditties touching on his chicken and his 
Baby Doll. This pair took the stage, all others 
considerately withdrawing; and presently, after 
a period of heartrending comicalities, the Scotch- 
man, speaking as though he had a mouthful of 
hot oatmeal, proceeded to narrate an account 
[312] 



AS DONE IN LONDON 



of a fictitious encounter with a bear. Substan- 
tially this dialogue ensued: 

The Scotchman — He was a vurra fierce griz- 
zly bear, ye ken; and he rushed at me from be- 
hind a jugged rock. 

The Negro — Mistah, you means a jagged 
rock, don't you? 

The Scotchman — Nay, nay, laddie — a jugged 
rock. 

The Negro — Whut's dat you say.^ Whut — 
whut is a jugged rock? 

The Scotchman {forgetting his accent) — Why, 
a rock with a jug on it, old chap. {A stage wait 
to let that soak into them in all its full strength.) 
A rock with a jug on it would be a jugged rock, 
wouldn't it — eh? 

The pause had been sufficient — they had it 
now. And from all parts of the house a whoop 
of unrestrained joy went up. 

Witnessing such spectacles as this, the Amer- 
ican observer naturally begins to think that the 
English in mass cannot see a joke that is the 
least bit subtle. Nevertheless, however, and to 
the contrary notwithstanding — as Colonel Bill 
Sterritt, of Texas, used to say — England has 
produced the greatest natural humorists in the 
world and some of the greatest comedians, and 
for a great many years has supported the great- 
est comic paper printed in the English language, 
and that is Punch. Also, at an informal Satur- 
day-night dinner in a well-known London club 
[313 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



I heard as much spontaneous repartee from the 
company at large, and as much quiet humor 
from the chairman, as I ever heard in one even- 
ing anywhere; but if you went into that club 
on a weekday you might suppose somebody was 
dead and laid out there, and that everybody 
about the premises had gone into deep mourn- 
ing for the deceased. If any member of that 
club had dared then to crack a joke they would 
have expelled him — as soon as they got over 
the shock of the bounder's confounded cheek. 
Saturday night? Yes. Monday afternoon? 
Never! And there you are! 

Speaking of Punch reminds me that we were 
in London when Punch, after giving the matter 
due consideration for a period of years, came 
out with a colored jacket on him. If the Prime 
Minister had done a Highland fling in costume 
at high noon in Oxford Circus it could not have 
created more excitement than Punch created by 
coming out with a colored cover. Yet, to an 
American's understanding, the change was not 
so revolutionary and radical as all that. Punch's 
well-known lineaments remained the same. 
There was merely a dab of palish yellow here 
and there on the sheet; at first glance you 
might have supposed somebody else had 
been reading your copy of Punch at breakfast 
and had been careless in spooning up his soft- 
boiled egg. 

They are our cousins, the English are; our 
cousins once removed, 'tis true — see standard 
[314 1 



AS DONE IN LONDON 



histories of the American Revolution for further 
details of the removing — but they are kinsmen 
of ours beyond a doubt. Even if there were no 
other evidences, the kinship between us would 
still be proved by the fact that the English are 
the only people except the Americans who look 
on red meat — beef, mutton, ham — as a food to 
be eaten for the taste of the meat itself; whereas 
the other nations of the earth regard it as a 
vehicle for carrying various sauces, dressings 
and stuffings southward to the stomach. But, 
to the notice of the American who is paying 
them his first visit, they certainly do offer some 
amazing contradictions. 

In the large matters of business the English 
have been accused of trickiness, which, however, 
may be but the voice of envious competition 
speaking; but in the small things they surely are 
most marvelously honest. Consider their rail- 
road trains now : To a greenhorn from this side 
the blue water, a railroad journey out of London 
to almost any point in rural England is a suc- 
cession of surprises, and all pleasant ones. To 
begin with, apparently there is nobody at the 
station whose business it is to show you to your 
train or to examine your ticket before you 
have found your train for yourself. There 
is no mad scurrying about at the moment of 
departure, no bleating of directions through 
megaphones. Unchaperoned you move along a 
long platform under a grimy shed, where trains 
are standing with their carriage doors hospitably 
[315] 



EUROPE REVISED 



ajar, and unassisted you find your own train 
and your own carriage, and enter therein. 

Sharp on the minute an unseen hand — at 
least I never saw it — slams the doors and coyly 
— you might almost say secretively — the train 
moves out of the terminal. It moves smoothly 
and practically without jarring sounds. There 
is no shrieking of steel against steel. It is as 
though the rails were made of rubber and the 
wheel-flanges were faced with noise-proof felt. 
No conductor comes to punch your ticket, no 
brakeman to bellow the stops, no train butcher 
bleating the gabbled invoice of his gumdrops, 
bananas and other best-sellers. 

Glory be! It is all so peaceful and soothing; 
as peaceful and as soothing as the land through 
which you are gliding when once you have left 
behind smoky London and its interminable en- 
virons; for now you are in a land that was 
finished and plenished five hundred years ago 
and since then has not been altered in any 
material aspect whatsoever. Every blade of 
grass is in its right place; every wayside shrub 
seemingly has been restrained and trained to 
grow in exactly the right and the proper way. 
Streaming by your car window goes a tastefully 
arranged succession of the thatched cottages, 
the huddled little towns, the meandering brooks, 
the ancient inns, the fine old country places, the 
high-hedged estates of the landed gentry, with 
rose-covered lodges at the gates and robust 
children in the doorways — just as you have 
always seen them in the picture books. There 
[ 316 ] 



AS DONE IN LONDON 



are fields that are velvet lawns, and lawns that 
are carpets of green cut-plush. England is the 
only country I know of that lives up — exactly 
and precisely — to its storybook descriptions and 
its storybook illustrations. 

Eventually you come to your stopping point; 
at least you have reason to believe it may be 
your stopping point. As well as you may judge 
by the signs that plaster the front, the sides, and 
even the top of the station, the place is either a 
beef extract or a washing compound. Nor may 
you count on any travelers who may be sharing 
your compartment with you to set you right by 
a timely word or two. Your fellow passengers 
may pity you for your ignorance and your per- 
plexity, but they would not speak; they could 
not, not having been introduced. A German or 
a Frenchman would be giving you gladly what 
aid he might; but a well-born Englishman who 
had not been introduced would ride for nine 
years with you and not speak. I found the best 
way of solving the puzzle was to consult the 
timecard. If the timecard said our train would 
reach a given point at a given hour, and this 
was the given hour, then we might be pretty sure 
this was the given point. Timetables in England 
are written by realists, not by gifted fiction 
writers of the impressionistic school, as is fre- 
quently the case in America. 

So, if this timecard says it is time for you to 

get off you get off, with your ticket still in your 

possession; and if it be a small station you go 

yourself and look up the station master, who 

[317] 



EUROPE REVISED 



is tucked away in a secluded cubbyhole some- 
where absorbing tea, or else is in the luggage 
room fussing with baby carriages and patent 
churns. Having ferreted him out in his hiding- 
place you hand over your ticket to him and he 
touches his cap brim and says "Kew" very 
politely, which concludes the ceremony so far 
as you are concerned. 

Then, if you have brought any heavy baggage 
with you in the baggage car — pardon, I meant 
the luggage van — you go back to the platform 
and pick it out from the heap of luggage that 
has been dumped there by the train hands. With 
ordinary luck and forethought you could easily 
pick out and claim and carry off some other 
person's trunk, provided you fancied it more 
than your own trunk, only you do not. You do 
not do this any more than, having purchased a 
second-class ticket, or a third-class, you ride 
first-class; though, so far as I eould tell, there 
is no check to prevent a person from so doing. 
At least an Englishman never does. It never 
seems to occur to him to do so. The English 
have no imagination. 

I have a suspicion that if one of our railroads 
tried to operate its train service on such a basis 
of confidence in the general public there would 
be a most deficitful hiatus in the receipts from 
passenger traffic to be reported to a distressed 
group of stockholders at the end of the fiscal 
year. This, however, is merely a supposition on 
my part. I may be wrong. 
[318] 



CHAPTER XVII 
BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 



I 



■^O a greater degree, I take it, than any- 
other race the English have mastered 
the difficult art of minding their own 
affairs. The average Englishman is 
tremendously knowledgable about his own con- 
cerns and monumentally ignorant about all 
other things. If an Englishman's business re- 
quires that he shall learn the habits and customs 
of the Patagonians or the Chicagoans or any 
other race which, because it is not British, he 
naturally regards as barbaric, he goes and learns 
them — and learns them well. Otherwise your 
Britisher does not bother himself with what the 
outlander may or may not do. 

An Englishman cannot understand an Amer- 
ican's instinctive desire to know about things; 
we do not understand his lack of curiosity in 
that direction. Both of us forget what I think 
must be the underlying reasons — that we are a 
race which, until comparatively recently, lived 
wide distances apart in sparsely settled lands, 
[319] 



EUROPE REVISED 



and were dependent on the passing stranger for 
news of the rest of the world, whereas he belongs 
to a people who all these centuries have been 
packed together in their little island like oats 
in a bin. London itself is so crowded that the 
noses of most of the lower classes turn up — there 
is not room for them to point straight ahead 
without causing a great and bitter confusion of 
noses ; but whether it points upward or outward 
or downward the owner of the nose pretty gen- 
erally refrains from ramming it into other folks' 
business. If he and all his fellows did not do 
this; if they had not learned to keep their voices 
down and to muffle unnecessary noises; if they 
had not built tight covers of reserve about them- 
selves, as the oyster builds up a shell to protect 
his tender tissues from irritation — they would 
long ago have become a race of nervous wrecks 
instead of being what they are, the most stolid 
beings alive. 

In London even royalty is mercifully vouch- 
safed a reasonable amount of privacy from the 
intrusion of the gimlet eye and the chisel nose. 
Royalty may ride in Rotten Row of a morning, 
promenade on the Mall at noon, and shop in 
the Regent Street shops in the afternoon, and at 
all times go unguarded and unbothered — I had 
almost said unnoticed. It may be that long and 
constant familiarity with the institution of roy- 
alty has bred indifference in the London mind 
to the physical presence of dukes and princes 
and things; but I am inclined to think a good 
[ 320 1 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

share of it should be attributed to the inborn 
and ingrown British faculty for letting other 
folks be. 

One morning as I was walking at random 
through the aristocratic district, of which St. 
James is the solar plexus and Park Lane the 
spinal cord, I came to a big mansion where foot- 
guards stood sentry at the wall gates. This 
house was further distinguished from its neigh- 
bors by the presence of a policeman pacing 
alongside it, and a newspaper photographer 
setting up his tripod and camera in the road, 
and a small knot of passers-by lingering on the 
opposite side of the way, as though waiting for 
somebody to come along or something to happen. 
I waited too. In a minute a handsome old man 
and a well-set-up young man turned the corner 
afoot. The younger man was leading a beauti- 
ful stag hound. The photographer touched his 
hat and said something, and the younger man 
smiling a good-natured smile, obligingly posed 
in the street for a picture. At this precise mo- 
ment a dirigible balloon came careening over 
the chimneypots on a cross-London air jaunt; 
and at the sight of it the little crowd left the 
young man and the photographer and set off 
at a run to follow, as far as they might, the 
course of the balloon. Now in America this 
could not have occurred, for the balloon man 
would not have been aloft at such an hour. He 
would have been on the earth; moreover he 
would have been outside the walls of that man- 
[321] 



EUROPE REVISED 



sion house, along with half a million, more or 
less, of his patriotic fellow countrymen, tearing 
his own clothes off and their clothes off, trampling 
the weak and sickly underfoot, bucking the 
doubled and tripled police lines in a mad, vain 
effort to see the flagpole on the roof or a corner 
of the rear garden wall. For that house was 
Clarence House, and the young man who posed 
so accommodatingly for the photographer was 
none other than Prince Arthur of Connaught, 
who was getting himself married the very next 
day. 

The next day I beheld from a short distance 
the passing of the bridal procession. Though 
there were crowds all along the route followed 
by the wedding party, there was no scrouging, 
no shoving, no fighting, no disorderly scramble, 
no unseemly congestion about the chapel where 
the ceremony took place. It reminded me 
vividly of that which inevitably happens when 
a millionaire's daughter is being married to a 
duke in a fashionable Fifth Avenue church — it 
reminded me of that because it was so different. 

Fortunately for us we were so placed that we 
saw quite distinctly the entrance of the wedding 
party into the chapel inclosure. Personally I 
was most concerned with the members of the 
royal house. As I recollect, they passed in the 
following order: 

His Majesty, King George the Fifth. 

Her Majesty, Queen Mary, the Other Four- 
Fifths. 

[322 1 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

Small fractional royalties to the number of a 
dozen or more. 

I got a clear view of the side face of the queen. 
As one looked on her profile, which was what 
you might call firm, and saw the mild-looking 
little king, who seemed quite eclipsed by her 
presence, one understood — or anyway one 
thought one understood — why an English as- 
semblage, when standing to chant the national 
anthem these times, always puts such fervor and 
meaning into the first line of it. 

Only one untoward incident occurred: The 
inevitable militant lady broke through the lines 
as the imperial carriage passed and threw a 
Votes for Women handbill into His Majesty's 
lap. She was removed thence by the police with 
the skill and dexterity of long practice. The 
police were competently on the job. They al- 
ways are — which brings me round to the subject 
of the London bobby and leads me to venture 
the assertion that individually and collectively, 
personally and officially, he is a splendid piece 
of work. The finest thing in London is the 
London policeman and the worst thing is the 
shamefully small and shabby pay he gets. He 
is majestic because he represents the majesty of 
the English law; he is humble and obliging be- 
cause, as a servant, he serves the people who 
make the law. And always he knows his busi- 
ness. 

In Charing Cross, where all roads meet and 
snarl up in the bewildering semblance of many 
[323 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



fishing worms in a can, I ventured out into the 
roadway to ask a poHceman the best route for 
reaching a place in a somewhat obscure quarter. 
He threw up his arm, semaphore fashion, first 
to this point of the compass and then to that, 
and traffic halted instantly. As far as the eye 
might reach it halted; and it stayed halted, too, 
while he searched his mind and gave me care- 
fully and painstakingly the directions for which 
I sought. In that packed mass of cabs and taxis 
and busses and carriages there were probably 
dukes and archbishops — dukes and archbishops 
are always fussing about in London — but they 
waited until he was through directing me. It 
flattered me so that I went back to the hotel 
and put on a larger hat. I sincerely hope there 
was at least one archbishop. 

Another time we went to Paddington to take 
a train for somewhere. Following the custom 
of the country we took along our trunks and 
traps on top of the taxicab. At the moment of 
our arrival there were no porters handy, so a 
policeman on post outside the station jumped 
forward on the instant and helped our chauffeur 
to wrestle the luggage down on the bricks. 
When I, rallying somewhat from the shock of 
this, thanked him and slipped a coin into his 
palm, he said in effect that, though he was 
obliged for the shilling, I must not feel that I 
had to give him anything — that it was part of 
his duty to aid the public in these small matters. 
I shut my eyes and tried to imagine a New York 
[324] 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

policeman doing as much for an unknown alien; 
but the effort gave me a severe headache. It 
gave me darting pains across the top of the skull 
— at about the spot where he would probably 
have belted me with his club had I even dared 
to ask him to bear a hand with my baggage. 

I had a peep into the workings of the system 
of which the London bobby is a spoke when I 
went to what is the very hub of the wheel of 
the common law — a police court. I understood 
then what gave the policeman in the street his 
authority and his dignity — and his humility — ■ 
when I saw how carefully the magistrate on the 
bench weighed each trifling cause and each 
petty case; how surely he winnowed out the 
small grain of truth from the gross and tare of 
surmise and fiction; how particular he was to 
give of the abundant store of his patience to any 
whining ragpicker or street beggar who faced 
him, whether as defendant at the bar, or ac- 
cuser, or witness. 

It was the very body of the law, though, we 
saw a few days after this when by invitation 
we witnessed the procession at the opening of 
the high courts. Considered from the stand- 
points of picturesqueness and impressiveness 
it made one's pulses tingle when those thirty 
or forty men of the wig and ermine marched in 
single and double file down the loftily vaulted 
hall, with the Lord Chancellor in wig and robes 
of state leading, and Sir Rufus Isaacs, knee- 
breeched and sword-belted, a pace or two be- 
[325 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



hind him; and then, in turn, the justices; and, 
going on ahead of them and following on behind 
them, knight escorts and ushers and clerks and 
all the other human cogs of the great machine. 
What struck into me deepest, however, was the 
look of nearly every one of the judges. Had 
they been dressed as longshoremen, one would 
still have known them for possessors of the 
judicial temperament — men born to hold the 
balances and fitted and trained to winnow out 
the wheat from the chaff. So many eagle-beaked 
noses, so many hawk-keen eyes, so many smooth- 
chopped, long-jowled faces, seen here together, 
made me think of what we are prone to regard 
as the highwater period of American statesman- 
ship — the Clay-Calhoun-Benton-Webster pe- 
riod. 

Just watching these men pass helped me to 
know better than any reading I had ever done 
why the English have faith and confidence in 
their courts. I said to myself that if I wanted 
justice — exact justice, heaping high in the scales 
— I should come to this shop and give my trade 
to the old-established firm; but if I were looking 
for a little mercy I should take my custom else- 
where. 

I cannot tell why I associate it in my mind 
with this grouped spectacle of the lords of the 
law, but somehow the scene to be witnessed in 
Hyde Park just inside the Marble Arch of a 
Sunday evening seems bound up somehow with 
the other institution. They call this place Lon- 
[326 1 




HE WOULD WHITE A LETTER TO "THE TIMES" COMPLAINING OF THE GROWING 
PREVALENCE OF LIONS IN THE PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

don's safety valve. It's all of that. Long ago 
the ruling powers discovered that if the rabidly 
discontented were permitted to preach dyna- 
mite and destruction unlimited they would not 
be so apt to practice their cheerful doctrines. 
So, without let or hindrance, any apostle of any 
creed, cult or propaganda, however lurid and 
revolutionary, may come here of a Sunday to 
meet with his disciples and spout forth the faith 
that is in him until he has geysered himself into 
peace, or, what comes to the same thing, into 
speechlessness. 

When I went to Hyde Park on a certain 
Sunday rain was falling and the crowds were 
not so large as usual, a bored policeman on duty 
in this outdoor forum told me; still, at that, 
there must have been two or three thousand 
listeners in sight and not less than twelve speak- 
ers. These latter balanced themselves on small 
portable platforms placed in rows, with such 
short spaces between them that their voices 
intermingled confusingly. In front of each or- 
ator stood his audience; sometimes they ap- 
plauded what he said in a sluggish British way, 
and sometimes they asked him questions de- 
signed to baffle or perplex him — heckling, I 
believe this is called — but there was never any 
suggestion of disorder and never any violent 
demonstration for or against a statement made 
by him. 

At the end of the line nearest the Arch, under 
a flary light, stood an old bearded man having 
[329] 



EUROPE REVISED 



the look on his face of a kindly but somewhat 
irritated moo-cow. At the moment I drew near 
he was having a long and involved argument 
with another controversialist touching on the 
sense of the word tabernacle as employed Scrip- 
turally, one holding it to mean the fleshly tene- 
ment of the soul and the other an actual place 
of worship. The old man had two favorite 
words — behoove and emit — but behoove was 
evidently his choice. As an emitter he was 
only fair, but he was the best behoover I ever 
saw anywhere. 

The orator next to him was speaking in a soft, 
sentimental tone, with gestures gently appropri- 
ate. I moved along to him, being minded to 
learn what particular brand of brotherly love 
he might be expounding. In the same tone a 
good friend might employ in telling you what 
to do for chapped lips or a fever blister he was 
saying that clergymen and armaments were use- 
less and expensive burdens on the common- 
wealth; and, as a remedy, he was advocating 
that all the priests and all the preachers in the 
kingdom should be loaded on all the dread- 
noughts, and then the dreadnoughts should be 
steamed to the deepest part of the Atlantic 
Ocean and there cozily scuttled, with all on 
board. 

There was scattering applause and a voice: 
"Ow, don't do that! Listen, 'ere! Hi've got 
a better plan." But the next speaker was blar- 
ing away at the top of his voice, making threat- 
[330] 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

ening faces and waving his clenched fists aloft 
and pounding with them on the top of his 
rostrum. 

"Now this," I said to myself, "is going to 
be something worth while. Surely this per- 
son would not be content merely with drowning 
all the parsons and sinking all the warships in 
the hole at the bottom of the sea. Undoubtedly 
he will advocate something really radical. I will 
invest five minutes with him." 

I did; but I was sold. He was favoring the 
immediate adoption of a universal tongue for 
all the peoples of the earth — that was all. I did 
not catch the name of his universal language, 
but I judged the one at which he would excel 
would be a language with few if any Ks in it. 
After this disappointment I lost heart and came 
away. 

Another phase, though a very different one, 
of the British spirit of fair play and tolerance, 
was shown to me at the National Sporting Club, 
which is the British shrine of boxing, where I 
saw a fight for one of the championship belts 
that Lord Lonsdale is forever bestowing on this 
or that worshipful fisticuffer. Instead of being 
inside the ring prying the fighters apart by main 
force as he would have been doing in America, 
the referee, dressed in evening clothes, was out- 
side the ropes. At a snapped word from him 
the fighters broke apart from clinches on the 
instant. The audience — a very mixed one, rang- 
ing in garb from broadcloths to shoddies — was 
[3311 



EUROPE REVISED 



as quick to approve a telling blow by the less 
popular fighter as to hiss any suggestion of 
trickiness or fouling on the part of the favorite. 
When a contestant in one of the preliminary 
goes, having been adjudged a loser on points, 
objected to the decision and insisted on being 
heard in his own behalf, the crowd, though 
plainly not in sympathy with his contention, 
listened to what he had to say. Nobody jeered 
him down. 

Had he been a foreigner and especially had 
he been an American I am inclined to think the 
situation might have been different. I seem to 
recall what happened once when a certain mid- 
dleweight from this side went over there and 
broke the British heart by licking the British 
champion; and again what happened when a 
Yankee boy won the Marathon at the Olympic 
games in London a few years ago. But as this 
man was a Briton himself these other Britons 
barkened to his sputterings, for England, you 
know, grants the right of free speech to all 
Englishmen — and denies it to all Englishwomen. 

The settled Englishman declines always to be 
jostled out of his hereditary state of intense 
calm. They tell of a man who dashed into the 
reading room of the Savage Club with the an- 
nouncement that a lion was loose on the Strand 
— a lion that had escaped from a traveling 
caravan and was rushing madly to and fro, 
scaring horses and frightening pedestrians. 

"Great excitement! Most terrific, old dears 
[332 1 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

— on my word!" he added, addressing the com- 
pany. 

Over the top of the Pink Un an elderly gentle- 
man of a full habit of life regarded him sourly. 

"Is that any reason," he inquired, "why a 
person should rush into a gentleman's club and 
kick up such a deuced hullabaloo?" 

The first man — he must have been a Colonial 
— gazed at the other man in amazement. 

"Well," he asked, "what would you do if 
you met a savage lion loose on the Strand?" 

"Sir, I should take a cab!" 

And after meeting an Englishman or two of 
this type I am quite prepared to say the story 
might have been a true one. If he met a lion 
on the Strand to-day he would take a cab; but 
if to-morrow, walking in the same place, he met 
two lions, he would write a letter to the Times 
complaining of the growing prevalence of lions 
in the public thoroughfares and placing the 
blame on the Suffragettes or Lloyd George or 
the Nonconformists or the increasing discontent 
of the working classes — that is what he would do. 

On the other hand, if he met a squirrel on a 
street in America it would be a most extraordi- 
nary thing. Extraordinary would undoubtedly 
be the word he would use to describe it. Lions 
on the Strand would be merely annoying, but 
chipmunks on Broadway would constitute a 
striking manifestation of the unsettled conditions 
existing in a wild and misgoverned land; for, 
you see, to every right-minded Englishman of 
[333 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



the insular variety — and that is the commonest 
variety there is in England — whatever happens 
at home is but part of an orderly and an 
ordered scheme of things, whereas whatever 
happens beyond the British domains must neces- 
sarily be highly unusual and exceedingly disor- 
ganizing. If so be it happens on English soil 
he can excuse it. He always has an explanation 
or an extenuation handy. But if it happens 
elsewhere — well, there you are, you see! What 
was it somebody once called England — Perfid- 
ious Alibi-in', wasn't it.^ Anyhow that was what 
he meant. The party's intentions were good 
but his spelling was faulty. 

An Englishman's newspapers help him to at- 
tain this frame of mind; for an English news- 
paper does not print sensational stories about 
Englishmen residing in England; it prints them 
about people resident in other lands. There is 
a good reason for this and the reason is based 
on prudence. In the first place the private life 
of a private individual is a most holy thing, with 
which the papers dare not meddle; besides, the 
paper that printed a faked-up tale about a pri- 
vate citizen in England would speedily be ex- 
posed and also extensively sued. As for public 
men, they are protected by exceedingly stringent 
libel laws. As nearly as I might judge, anything 
true you printed about an English politician 
would be libelous, and anything libelous you 
printed about him would be true. 

It befalls, therefore, as I was told on most 
[334 1 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

excellent authority, that when the editor of a 
live London daily finds the local grist to be dull 
and uninteresting reading he straightway cables 
to his American correspondent or his Paris cor- 
respondent — these two being his main standbys 
for sensations — asking, if his choice falls on the 
man in America, for a snappy dispatch, say, 
about an American train smash-up, or a Nature 
freak, or a scandal in high society with a rich 
man mixed up in it. He wires for it, and in reply 
he gets it. I have been in my time a country 
correspondent for city papers, and I know that 
what Mr. Editor wants Mr. Editor gets. 

As a result America, to the provincial English- 
man's understanding, is a land where a hunter 
is always being nibbled to death by sheep; or a 
prospective mother is being so badly frightened 
by a chameleon that her child is born with a com- 
plexion changeable at will and an ungovernable 
appetite for flies; or a billionaire is giving a 
monkey dinner or poisoning his wife, or some- 
thing. Also, he gets the idea that a through 
train in this country is so called because it in- 
variably runs through the train ahead of it; 
and that when a man in Connecticut is expecting 
a friend on the fast express from Boston, and 
wants something to remember him by, he goes 
down to the station at traintime with a bucket. 
Under the headlining system of the English news- 
papers the derailment of a work-train in Arizona, 
wherein several Mexican tracklayers get mussed 
up, becomes Another Frightful American Rail- 
[335 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



way Disaster! But a head-on collision, attended 
by fatalities, in the suburbs of Liverpool or 
Manchester is a Distressing Suburban Incident. 
Yet the official Blue Book, issued by the British 
Board of Trade, showed that in the three months 
ending March 31, 1913, 284 persons were killed 
and 2,457 were injured on railway lines in the 
United Kingdom. 

Just as an English gentleman is the most mod- 
est person imaginable, and the most backward 
about offering lip-service in praise of his own 
achievements or his country's achievements, so, 
in the same superlative degree, some of his 
newspapers are the most blatant of boasters. 
About the time we were leaving England the 
job of remodeling and beautifying the front 
elevation of Buckingham Palace reached its 
conclusion, and a dinner was given to the work- 
ingmen who for some months had been engaged 
on the contract. It had been expected that the 
occasion would be graced by the presence of 
Their Majesties; but the king, as I recall, was 
pasting stamps in the new album the Czar of 
Russia sent him on his birthday, and the 
queen was looking through the files of Godey's 
Lady's Book for the year 1874, picking out 
suitable costumes for the ladies of her court to 
wear. At any rate they could not attend. 
Otherwise, though, the dinner must have been 
a success. Reading the account of it as pub- 
lished next morning in a London paper, I learned 
that some of the guests, "with rare British 
[336] 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

pluck," wore their caps and corduroys; that 
others, "with true British independence," 
smoked their pipes after dinner; that there was 
"real British beef" and "genuine British plum 
pudding" on the menu; and that repeatedly 
those present uttered "hearty British cheers." 
From top to bottom the column was studded 
thick with British thises and British thats. 

Yet the editorial writers of that very paper 
are given to frequent and sneering attacks on 
the alleged yellowness and the boasting pro- 
clivities of the jingo Yankee sheets; also, they 
are prone to spasmodic attacks on the laxity of 
our marriage laws. Perhaps what they say of 
us is true; but for unadulterated nastiness I 
never saw anything in print to equal the front 
page of a so-called sporting weekly that cir- 
culates freely in London, and I know of nothing 
to compare with the brazen exhibition of a 
certain form of vice that is to be witnessed 
nightly in the balconies of two of London's 
largest music halls. It was upon the program 
of another London theater that I came across 
the advertisement of a lady styling herself 
"London's Woman Detective" and stating, in so 
many words, that her specialties were "Divorce 
Shado wings" and "Secret Inquiries." Maybe 
it is a fact that in certain of our states marriage 
is not so much a contract as a ninety-day op- 
tion, but the lady detective who does divorce 
shadowing and advertises her qualifications 
publicly has not opened up her shop among us. 
[337] 



EUROPE REVISED 



In the campaign to give the stay-at-home 
Englishman a strange conception of his Amer- 
ican kinsman the press is ably assisted by the 
stage. In London I went to see a comedy writ- 
ten by a deservedly successful dramatist, and 
staged, I think, under his personal direction. 
The English characters in the play were whim- 
sical and, as nearly as I might judge, true to 
the classes they purported to represent. There 
was an American character in this piece too — 
a multimillionaire, of course, and a collector of 
pictures — presumably a dramatically fair and 
realistic drawing of a wealthy, successful, art- 
loving American. I have forgotten now whether 
he was supposed to be one of our meaty Chicago 
millionaires, or one of our oily Cleveland mil- 
lionaires, or one of our steely Pittsburgh mil- 
lionaires, or just a plain millionaire from the 
country at large; and I doubt whether the 
man who wrote the lines had any conception 
when he did write them of the fashion in which 
they were afterward read. Be that as it may, the 
actor who essayed to play the American used 
an inflection, or an accent, or a dialect, or a 
jargon — or whatever you might choose to call 
it — which was partly of the oldtime drawly Wild 
Western school of expression and partly of the 
oldtime nasal Down East school. I had thought — 
and had hoped — that both these actor-created 
lingoes were happily obsolete; but in their full 
flower of perfection I now heard them here in 
London. Also, the actor who played the part 
[338] 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

interpreted the physical angles of the character 
in a manner to suggest a pleasing combination 
of Uncle Joshua Whitcomb, Mike the Bite, Jef- 
ferson Brick and Coal-Oil Johnny, with a sug- 
gestion of Jesse James interspersed here and 
there. True, he spat not on the carpet loudly, 
and he refrained from saying I vum! and Great 
Snakes ! — quaint conceits that, I am told, every 
English actor who respected his art formerly 
employed when wishful to type a stage American 
for an English audience; but he bragged loudly 
and emphatically of his money and of how he 
got it and of what he would do with it. I do 
not perceive why it is the English, who them- 
selves so dearly love the dollar after it 
is translated into terms of pounds, shill- 
ings and pence, should insist on regarding 
us as a nation of dollar-grabbers, when they 
only see us in the act of freely dispensing the 
aforesaid dollar. 

They do so regard us, though ; and, with true 
British setness, I suppose they always will. 
Even so I think that, though they may dislike 
us as a nation, they like us as individuals; and 
it is certainly true that they seem to value us 
more highly than they value Colonials, as they 
call them — particularly Canadian Colonials. It 
would appear that your true Briton can never 
excuse another British subject for the shock- 
ingly poor taste he displayed in being born 
away from home. And, though in time he may 
forgive us for refusing to be licked by him, he 
[339] 



EUROPE REVISED 



can never forgive the Colonials for saving him 
from being licked in South Africa. 

When I started in to write this chapter I 
meant to conclude it with an apology for my 
audacity in undertaking — in any wise— to sum 
up the local characteristics of a country where 
I had tarried for so short a time; but I have 
changed my mind about that. I have merely 
borrowed a page from the book of rules of the 
British essayists and novelists who come over 
here to write us up. Why, bless your soul, I 
gave nearly eight weeks of time to the task of 
seeing Europe thoroughly; and of those eight 
weeks I spent upward of three weeks in and 
about London — indeed, a most unreasonably 
long time when measured by the standards of 
the Englishman of letters who does a book 
about us. 

He has his itinerary all mapped out in ad- 
vance. He will squander a wdiole week on us. 
We are scarcely worth it; but, such as we are, 
we shall have a week of his company ! Landing 
on Monday morning, he will spend Monday in 
New York, Tuesday in San Francisco, and Wed- 
nesday in New Orleans. Thursday he will divide 
between Boston and Chicago, devoting the fore- 
noon to one and the afternoon to the other. 
Friday morning he will range through the Rocky 
Mountains; and after luncheon, if he is not too 
fatigued, he will take a carriage and pop in on 
Yosemite Valley for an hour or so. 

But Saturday — all of it — will be given over 
[340 1 



BRITAIN IN TWENTY MINUTES 

to the Far Southland. He is going 'way down 
South — to sunny South Dakota, in fact, to see 
the genuine native American darkies, the real 
Yankee blackamoors. Most interesting beings, 
the blackamoors ! They live exclusively on poul- 
try — fowls, you know — and all their women folk 
are named Honey Gal. 

He will observe them in their hours of leisure, 
when, attired in their national costume, con- 
sisting of white duck breeches, banjos, and 
striped shirts with high collars, they gather be- 
neath the rays of the silvery Southern moon to 
sing their tribal melodies on the melon-lined 
shores of the old Oswego; and by day he will 
study them at their customary employment as 
they climb from limb to limb of the cottonwood 
trees, picking cotton. On Sunday he will ar- 
range and revise his notes, and on Monday 
morning he will sail for home. 

Such is the program of Solomon Grundy, 
Esquire, the distinguished writing Englishman; 
but on his arrival he finds the country to be 
somewhat larger than he expected — larger actu- 
ally than the Midlands. So he compromises by 
spending five days at a private hotel in New 
York, run by a very worthy and deserving 
Englishwoman of the middle classes, where one 
may get Yorkshire puddings every day; and two 
days more at a wealthy tufthunter's million-dol- 
lar cottage at Newport, studying the habits and 
idiosyncrasies of the common people. And then 
he rushes back to England and hurriedly em- 
[341] 



EUROPE REVISED 



balms his impressions of us in a large volume, 
stating it to be his deliberate opinion that, 
though we mean well enough, we won't do — 
really. He necessarily has to hurry, because, 
you see, he has a contract to write a novel or a 
play — or both a novel and a play— with Lord 
Northcliffe as the central figure. In these days 
practically all English novels and most English 
comedies play up Lord Northcliffe as the central 
figure. Almost invariably the young English 
writer chooses him for the axis about which his 
plot shall revolve. English journalists who have 
been discharged from one of Northcliffe' s publi- 
cations make him their villain, and English 
journalists who hope to secure jobs on one of 
his publications make him their hero. The liter- 
ature of a land is in perilous case when it depends 
on the personality of one man. One shudders 
to think what the future of English fiction would 
be should anything happen to His Lordship! 
Business of shuddering! 



[342] 



CHAPTER XVIII 
GUYED OR GUIDED? 




URING our scientific explorations in 
the Eastern Hemisphere we met two 
guides who had served the late Samuel 
L. Clemens, one who had served the 
late J. Pierpont Morgan, and one who had acted 
as courier to ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. 
After inquiry among persons who were also 
lately abroad I have come to the conclusion 
that my experience in this regard was remark- 
able, not because I met so many as four of the 
guides who had attended these distinguished 
Americans, but because I met so few as four of 
them. One man with whom I discussed the 
matter told of having encountered, in the course 
of a brief scurry across Europe, five members in 
good standing of the International Association 
of Former Guides to Mark Twain. All of them 
had union cards to prove it too. Others said 
that in practically every city of any size visited 
by them there was a guide who told of his deep 
attachment to the memory of Mr. Morgan, and 
[343 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



described how Mr. Morgan had hired him with- 
out inquiring in advance what his rate for 
professional services a day would be; and how 
— lingering with wistful emphasis on the words 
along here and looking meaningly the while at 
the present patron — how very, very generous 
Mr. Morgan had been in bestowing gratuities 
on parting. 

Our first experience with guides was at West- 
minster Abbey. As it happened, this guide was 
one of the Mark Twain survivors. I think, 
though, he was genuine; he had documents of 
apparent authenticity in his possession to help 
him in proving up his title. Anyhow, he knew 
his trade. He led us up and down those parts 
of the Abbey which are free to the general public 
and brought us finally to a wicket gate, opening 
on the royal chapels, which was as far as he 
could go. There he turned us over to a severe- 
looking dignitary in robes — an archbishop, I 
judged, or possibly only a canon — who, on pay- 
ment by us of a shilling a head, escorted our 
party through the remaining inclosures, showing 
us the tombs of England's queens and kings, or 
a good many of them anyway; and the Black 
Prince's helmet and breastplate; and the ex- 
quisite chapel of Henry the Seventh, and the 
ancient chair on which all the kings sat for their 
coronations, with the famous Scotch Stone of 
Scone under it. 

The chair itself was not particularly impres- 
sive. It was not nearly so rickety and decrepit 
[344 1 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



as the chairs one sees in almost any London 
barber shop. Nor was my emotion particularly 
excited by the stone. I would engage to get a 
better-looking one out of the handiest rock 
quarry inside of twenty minutes. This stone 
should not be confused with the ordinary scones, 
which also come from Scotland and which are 
by some regarded as edible. 

What did seem to us rather a queer thing was 
that the authorities of Westminster should make 
capital of the dead rulers of the realm and, ex- 
cept on certain days of the week, should charge 
an admission fee to their sepulchers. Later, on 
the Continent, we sustained an even more severe 
shock when we saw royal palaces — palaces that 
on occasion are used by the royal proprietors — 
with the quarters of the monarchs upstairs and 
downstairs novelty shops and tourist agencies 
and restaurants, and the like of that. I jotted 
down a few crisp notes concerning these matters, 
my intention being to comment on them as 
evidence of an incomprehensible thrift on the 
part of our European kins-people; but on second 
thought I decided to refrain from so doing. I 
recalled the fact that we ourselves are not entirely 
free from certain petty national economies. 
Abroad we house our embassies up back streets, 
next door to bird and animal stores; and at 
home there is many a public institution where 
the doormat says Welcome! in large letters, but 
the soap is chained and the roller towel is pad- 
locked to its little roller. 

[345] 



EUROPE REVISED 



Guides are not particularly numerous in Eng- 
land. Even in the places most frequented by 
the sightseer they do not abound in any pro- 
fusion. At Madame Tussaud's, for example, we 
found only one guide. We encountered him 
just after we had spent a mournful five minutes 
in contemplation of ex-President Taft. Friends 
and acquaintances of Mr. Taft will be shocked 
to note the great change in him when they see 
him here in wax. He does not weigh so much 
as he used to weigh by at least one hundred and 
fifty pounds; he has lost considerable height too; 
his hair has turned another color and his eyes 
also; his mustache is not a close fit any more, 
either; and he is wearing a suit of English-made 
clothes. 

On leaving the sadly altered form of our 
former Chief Executive we descended a flight 
of stone steps leading to the Chamber of Horrors. 
This department was quite crowded with parents 
escorting their children about. Like America, 
England appears to be well stocked with parents 
who make a custom of taking their young and 
susceptible offspring to places where the young 
ones stand a good chance of being scared into 
connipshun fits. The official guide was in the 
Chamber of Horrors. He was piloting a large 
group of visitors about, but as soon as he saw 
our smaller party he left them and came directly 
to us; for they were Scotch and we were Amer- 
icans, citizens of the happy land where tips 
come from. Undoubtedly that guide knew best. 
[346 1 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



With pride and pleasure he showed us a rep- 
resentative assortment of England's most popu- 
lar and prominent murderers. The English 
dearly love a murderer. Perhaps that is because 
they have fewer murderers than we have, and 
have less luck than we do in keeping them alive 
and in good spirits to a ripe old age. Almost 
any American community of fair size can afford 
at least two murderers— one in jail, under sen- 
tence, receiving gifts of flowers and angel cake 
from kind ladies, and waiting for the court above 
to reverse the verdict in his case because the 
indictment was shy a comma; and the other out 
on bail, awaiting his time for going through the 
same procedure. But with the English it is 
different. 

We rarely hang anybody who is anybody, and 
only occasionally make an issue of stretching 
the neck of the veriest nobody. They will hang 
almost anybody Haman-high, or even higher 
than that. They do not exactly hang their 
murderer before they catch him, but the two 
events occur in such close succession that one 
can readily understand why a confusion should 
have arisen in the public mind on these points. 
First, of all, though, they catch him; and then 
some morning between ten and twelve they try 
him. This is a brief and businesslike formality. 
While the judge is looking in a drawer of his desk 
to see whether the black cap is handy the bailiffs 
shoo twelve tradesmen into the jury box. A 
tradesman is generally chosen for jury service 
[347 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



because he is naturally anxious to get the thing 
over and hurry back to his shop before his 
helper goes to lunch. The judge tells the jurors 
to look on the prisoner, because he is going away 
shortly and is not expected back; so they take 
full advantage of the opportunity, realizing it 
to be their last chance. Then, in order to com- 
ply with the forms, the judge asks the accused 
whether he is guilty or not guilty, and the jurors 
promptly say he is. His Worship, concurring 
heartily, fixes the date of execution for the first 
Friday morning when the hangman has no other 
engagements. It is never necessary to postpone 
this event through failure of the condemned to 
be present. He is always there; there is no 
record of his having disappointed an audience. 
So, on the date named, rain or shine, he is 
hanged very thoroughly; but after the hanging 
is over they write songs and books about him 
and revere his memory forevermore. 

Our guide was pleased to introduce us to the 
late Mr. Charles Pease, as done in parafl&n, with 
creped hair and bright, shiny glass eyes. Mr. 
Pease was undoubtedly England's most fashion- 
able murderer of the past century and his name is 
imperishably enshrined in the British affections. 
The guide spoke of his life and works with deep 
and sincere feeling. He also appeared to derive 
unfeigned pleasure from describing the accom- 
plishments of another murderer, only slightly 
less famous than the late Mr. Pease. It seemed 
that this murderer, after slaying his victim, set 
[348 1 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



to dismembering the body and boiling it. They 
boil nearly everything in England. But the 
police broke in on him and interrupted the 
job. 

Our attention was directed to a large chart 
showing the form of the victim, the boiled por- 
tions being outlined in red and the unboiled 
portions in black. Considered as a murderer 
solely this particular murderer may have been 
deserving of his fame; but when it came to 
boiling, that was another matter. He showed 
poor judgment there. It all goes to show that 
a man should stick to his own trade and not 
try to follow two or more widely dissimilar 
callings at the same time. Sooner or later he 
is bound to slip up. 

We found Stratford-upon-Avon to be the one 
town in England where guides are really abun- 
dant. There are as many guides in Stratford 
as there are historic spots. I started to say 
that there is at least one guide in Stratford for 
every American who goes there; but that would 
be stretching real facts, because nearly every 
American who goes to England manages to 
spend at least a day in Stratford, it being a 
spot very dear to his heart. The very name of 
it is associated with two of the most conspicuous 
figures in our literature. I refer first to Andrew 
Carnegie; second to William Shakspere. Shak- 
spere, who wrote the books, was born here; but 
Carnegie, who built the libraries in which to 
keep the books, and who has done some writing 
[ 349 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



himself, provided money for preserving and per- 
petuating the relics. 

We met a guide in the ancient schoolhouse 
where the Bard — I am speaking now of William, 
not of Andrew — acquired the rudiments of his 
education ; and on duty at the old village church 
was another guide, who for a price showed us 
the identical gravestone bearing the identical 
inscription which, reproduced in a design of 
burnt wood, is to-day to be found on the walls 
of every American household, however humble, 
whose members are wishful of imparting an 
artistic and literary atmosphere to their home. 
A third guide greeted us warmly when we drove 
to the cottage, a mile or two from the town, 
where the Hathaway family lived. Here we saw 
the high-backed settle on which Shakspere sat, 
night after night, wooing Anne Hathaway. I 
myself sat on it to test it. I should say that the 
wooing could not have been particularly good 
there, especially for a thin man. That settle 
had a very hard seat and history does not record 
that there was a cushion. Shakspere's affec- 
tions for the lady must indeed have been stead- 
fast. Or perhaps he was of stouter build than 
his pictures show him to have been. 

Guides were scattered all over the birthplace 
house in Stratford in the ratio of one or more 
to each room. Downstairs a woman guide pre- 
sided over a battery of glass cases containing 
personal belongings of Shakspere's and docu- 
ments written by him and signed by him. It is 
[350] 



^ 




FEEDING HOUR IN THE PARROT CAGE AT THE ZOO NEVER PRODUCED 
ANYTHING LIKE SO NOISY AND ANIMATED A SCENE 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



conceded that he could write, but he certainly 
was a mighty poor speller. This has been a 
failing of many well-known writers. Chaucer 
was deficient in this regard; and if it were not 
for a feeling of personal modesty I could apply 
the illustration nearer home. 

Two guides accompanied us as we climbed 
the stairs to the low-roofed room on the second 
floor where the creator of Shylock and Juliet was 
born — or was not born, if you believe what 
Ignatius Donnelly had to say on the subject. 
But would it not be interesting and valued in- 
formation if we could only get the evidence on 
this point of old Mrs. Shakspere, who undoubt- 
edly was present on the occasion .^^ A member 
of our party, an American, ventured to remark 
as much to one of the guides; but the latter did 
not seem to understand him. So the American 
told him just to keep thinking it over at odd 
moments, and that he would be back again in 
a couple of years, if nothing happened, and 
possibly by that time the guide would have 
caught the drift of his observation. On second 
thought, later on, he decided to make it three 
years — he did not want to crowd the guide, he 
said, or put too great a burden on his mentality 
in a limited space of time. 

If England harbors few guides the Continent 
is fairly glutted with them. After nightfall the 
boulevards of Paris are so choked with them 
that in places there is standing room only. In 
Rome the congestion is even greater. In Rome 
[353 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



every other person is a guide — and sometimes 
twins. I do not know why, in thinking of 
Europe, I invariably associate the subject of 
guides with the subject of tips. The guides 
were no greedier for tips than the cabmen or 
the hotel helpers, or the railroad hands, or the 
populace at large. Nevertheless this is true. In 
my mind I am sure guides and tips will always 
be coupled, as surely as any of those standard 
team-word combinations of our language that 
are familiar to all; as firmly paired off as, for 
example. Castor and Pollux, or Damon and 
Pythias, or Fair and Warmer, or Hay and Feed. 
When I think of one I know I shall think of 
the other. Also I shall think of languages; but 
for that there is a reason. 

Tipping — the giving of tips and the occasional 
avoidance of giving them — takes up a good deal 
of the tourist's time in Europe. At first reading 
the arrangement devised by the guidebooks, of 
setting aside ten per cent of one's bill for tipping 
purposes, seems a better plan and a less costly 
one than the indiscriminate American system of 
tipping for each small service at the time of its 
performance. The trouble is that this arrange- 
ment does not work out so well in actual practice 
as it sounds in theory. On the day of your de- 
parture you send for your hotel bill. You do 
not go to the desk and settle up there after the 
American fashion. If you have learned the 
ropes you order your room waiter to fetch your 
bill to you, and in the privacy of your apart- 
[354] 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



ment you pore over the formidable document 
wherein every small charge is fully specified, the 
whole concluding with an impressive array of 
items regarding which you have no prior recol- 
lection whatsoever. Considering the total, you 
put aside an additional ten per cent, calculated 
for division on the basis of so much for the 
waiter, so much for the boots, so much for the 
maid and the porter, and the cashier, and the 
rest of them. It is not necessary that you send 
for these persons in order to confer your farewell 
remembrances on them; they will be waiting 
for you in the hallways. No matter how early 
or late the hour of your leaving may be, you 
find them there in a long and serried rank. 

You distribute bills and coins until your ten 
per cent is exhausted, and then you are pained 
to note that several servitors yet remain, lined 
up and all expectant, owners of strange faces 
that you do not recall ever having seen before, 
but who are now at hand with claims, real or 
imaginary, on your purse. Inasmuch as you 
have a deadly fear of being remembered after- 
ward in this hotel as a piker, you continue to 
dip down and to fork over, and so by the time 
you reach the tail end of the procession your 
ten per cent has grown to twelve or fifteen per 
cent, or even more. 

As regards the tipping of guides for their 

services, I hit on a fairly satisfactory plan, 

which I gladly reveal here for the benefit of 

my fellow man. I think it is a good idea to 

[355 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



give the guide, on parting, about twice as much 
as you think he is entitled to, which will be 
about half as much as he expects. From this 
starting point you then work toward each 
other, you conceding a little from time to time, 
he abating a trifle here and there, until you 
have reached a happy compromise on a basis of 
fifty-fifty; and so you part in mutual good will. 

The average American, on the eve of going 
to Europe, thinks of the European as speaking 
each his own language. He conceives of the 
Poles speaking Polar; of the Hollanders talking 
Hollandaise; of the Swiss as employing Schweit- 
zer for ordinary conversations and yodeling 
when addressing friends at a distance; and so on. 
Such, however, is rarely the case. Nearly every 
person with whom one comes in contact in 
Europe appears to have fluent command of 
several tongues besides his or her own. It is 
true this does not apply to Italy, where the 
natives mainly stick to Italian ; but then, Italian 
is not a language. It is a calisthenic. 

Between Rome and Florence, our train stopped 
at a small way station in the mountains. As 
soon as the little locomotive had panted itself 
to a standstill the train hands, following their 
habit, piled off the cars and engaged in a tre- 
mendous confab with the assembled officials on 
the platform. Immediately all the loafers in 
sight drew cards. A drowsy hillsman, muffled 
to his back hair in a long brown cloak, and with 
buskins on his legs such as a stage bandit wears, 
[356 1 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



was dozing against the wall. He looked as though 
he had stepped right out of a comic opera to 
add picturesqueness to the scene. He roused 
himself and joined in; so did a bearded party 
who, to judge by his uniform, was either a 
Knight of Pythias or a general in the army; so 
did all the rest of the crowd. In ten seconds they 
were jammed together in a hard knot, and going 
it on the high speed with the muffler off, fine 
white teeth shining, arms flying, shoulders 
shrugging, spinal columns writhing, mustaches 
rising and falling, legs wriggling, scalps and ears 
following suit. Feeding hour in the parrot cage 
at the zoo never produced anything like so noisy 
and animated a scene. In these parts acute 
hysteria is not a symptom; it is merely a state 
of mind. 

A waiter in soiled habiliments hurried up, 
abandoning chances of trade at the prospect of 
something infinitely more exciting. He wanted 
to stick his oar into the argument. He had a few 
pregnant thoughts of his own craving utterance, 
you could tell that. But he was handicapped 
into a state of dumbness by the fact that he 
needed both arms to balance a tray of wine and 
sandwiches on his head. Merely using his voice 
in that company would not have counted. He 
stood it as long as he could, which was not very 
long, let me tell you. Then he slammed his tray 
down on the platform and, with one quick move- 
ment, jerked his coat sleeves back to his elbows, 
and inside thirty seconds he had the floor in 
[357] 



EUROPE REVISED 



both hands, as it were. He conversed mainly 
with the Austrahan crawl stroke, but once in a 
while switched to the Spencerian free-arm move- 
ment and occasionally introduced the Chautau- 
qua salute with telling effect. 

On the Continent guides, as a class, excel in 
the gift of tongues — guides and hotel concierges. 
The concierge at our hotel in Berlin was a big, 
upstanding chap, half Russian and half Swiss, 
and therefore qualified by his breeding to speak 
many languages; for the Russians are born with 
split tongues and can give cards and spades to 
any talking crow that ever lived ; while the Swiss 
lag but little behin i them in linguistic aptitude. 
It seemed such a pity that this man was not 
alive when the hands knocked off work on the 
Tower of Babel; he could have put the job 
through without extending himself. No matter 
what the nationality of a guest might be — and 
the guests were of many nationalities — he could 
talk with that guest in his own language or in 
any other language the guest might fancy. I 
myself was sorely tempted to try him on 
Coptic and early Aztec; but I held off. My 
Coptic is not what it once was; and, partly 
through disuse and partly through carelessness, 
I have allowed my command of early Aztec to 
fall off pretty badly these last few months. 

All linguistic freakishness is not confined to 

the Continent. The English, who are popularly 

supposed to use the same language we ourselves 

use, sometimes speak with a migMy strange 

[358] 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



tongue. A great many of them do not speak 
English; they speak British, a very different 
thing. An EngHshwoman of breeding has a 
4 wonderful speaking voice; as pure as a Boston 
woman's and more liquid; as soft as a Southern 
woman's and with more attention paid to the r's. 
But the Cockney type — Wowie! During a car- 
riage ride in Florence with a mixed company of 
tourists I chanced to say something of a com- 
plimentary nature about something English, and 
a little London-bred woman spoke up and said: 
"Thenks! It's vurry naice of you to sezzo, 'm 
sure." Some of them talk like that — honestly 
they do! 

Though Americo-English may not be an es- 
pecially musical speech, it certainly does lend 
itself most admirably to slang purposes. Here 
again the Britishers show their inability to 
utilize the vehicle to the full of its possibilities. 
England never produced a Billy Baxter or a 
George Ade, and I am afraid she never will. 
Most of our slang means something; you hear a 
new slang phrase and instantly you realize that 
the genius who coined it has hit on a happy and 
a graphic and an illuminating expression; that at 
one bound he rose triumphant above the limita- 
tions of the language and tremendously enriched 
the working vocabulary of the man in the 
street. Whereas an Englishman's idea of sling- 
ing slang is to scoop up at random some inoffen- 
sive and well-meaning word that never did him 
any harm and apply it in the place of some other 
f 359 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



word, to which the first word is not related, even 
by marriage. And look how they deliberately 
mispronounce proper names. Everybody knows 
about Cholmondeley and St. John. But take 
the Scandinavian word fjord. Why, I ask you, 
should the English insist on pronouncing it 
Ferguson? 

At Oxford, the seat of learning, Magdalen is 
pronounced Maudlin, probably in subtle tribute 
to the condition of the person who first pro- 
nounced it so. General-admission day is not 
the day you enter, but the day you leave. Full 
term means three-quarters of a term. An ordi- 
nary degree is a degree obtained by a special 
examination. An inspector of arts does not 
mean an inspector of arts, but a student; and 
from this point they go right ahead, getting 
worse all the time. The droll creature who 
compiled the Oxford glossary was a true English- 
man. 

When an Englishman undertakes to wrestle 
with American slang he makes a fearful hash 
of it. In an English magazine I read a short 
story, written by an Englishman who is regarded 
by a good many persons, competent to judge, 
as being the cleverest writer of English alive to- 
day. The story was beautifully done from the 
standpoint of composition; it bristled with 
flashing metaphors and whimsical phrasing. The 
scene of the yarn was supposed to be Chicago 
and naturally the principal figure in it was a 
millionaire. In one place the author has this 
[360] 



GUYED OR GUIDED? 



person saying, "I reckon you'll feel pretty 
mean," and in another place, "I reckon I'm 
not a man with no pull." 

Another character in the story says, "I know 
you don't cotton to the march of science in 
these matters," and speaks of something that 
is unusual as being "a rum affair." A walled 
state prison, presumably in Illinois, is referred 
to as a "convict camp"; and its warden is called 
a "governor" and an assistant keeper is called 
a "warder"; while a Chicago daily paper is 
quoted as saying that "larrildns" directed the 
attention of a policeman to a person who was 
doing thus and so. 

The writer describes a "mysterious mere" 
known as Pilgrim's Pond, "in which they say" 
— a prison official is supposed to be talking now 
— "our fathers made witches walk until they 
sank." Descendants of the original Puritans 
who went from Plymouth Rock, in the summer 
of 1621, and founded Chicago, will recall this 
pond distinctly. Cotton Mather is buried on 
its far bank, and from there it is just ten min- 
utes by trolley to Salem, Massachusetts. It is 
stated also in this story that the prairies begin a 
matter of thirty-odd miles from Chicago, and 
that to reach them one must first traverse a 
"perfect no man's land." Englewood and South 
Chicago papers please copy. 



[361] 



CHAPTER XIX 
VENICE AND THE VENISONS 



GETTING back again to guides, I am 
• reminded that our acquaintanceship 
with the second member of the Mark 
Twain brotherhood was staged in 
Paris. This gentleman wished himself on us 
one afternoon at the Hotel des Invalides. We 
did not engage him; he engaged us, doing the 
trick with such finesse and skill that before we 
realized it we had been retained to accompany 
him to various points of interest in and round 
Paris. However, we remained under his control 
one day only. At nightfall we wrested ourselves 
free and fled under cover of darkness to German 
soil, where we were comparatively safe. 

I never knew a man who advanced so rapidly 
in a military way as he did during the course of 
that one day. Our own national guard could 
not hold a candle to him. He started out at 
ten A. M. by being an officer of volunteers in the 
Franco-Prussian War; but every time he slipped 
away and took a nip out of his private bottle, 
[362] 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

which was often, he advanced in rank auto- 
matically. Before the dusk of evening came he 
was a corps commander, who had been ennobled 
on the field of battle by the hand of Napoleon 
the Third. 

He took us to Versailles. We did not partic- 
ularly care to go to Versailles that day, because 
it was raining; but he insisted and we went. 
In spite of the drizzle we might have enjoyed 
that wonderful place had he not been constantly 
at our elbows, gabbling away steadily except 
when he excused himself for a moment and 
stepped behind a tree, to emerge a moment later 
wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Then he would 
return to us, with an added gimpiness in his 
elderly legs, an increased expansion of the chest 
inside his tight and shiny frock coat, and a fresh 
freight of richness on his breath, to report an- 
other deserved promotion. 

After he had eaten luncheon — all except such 
portions of it as he spilled on himself— the colo- 
nel grew confidential and chummy. He tried 
to tell me an off -color story and forgot the point 
of it, if indeed it had any point. He began 
humming the Marseillaise hymn, but broke off 
to say he expected to live to see the day when 
a column of French troops, singing that air, 
would march up Unter den Linden to stack 
their arms in the halls of the Kaiser's palace. 
I did not take issue with him. Every man is 
entitled to his own wishes in those matters. 
But later on, when I had seen something of the 
[ 363 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



Kaiser's standing army, I thought to myself 
that when the French troops did march up Unter 
den Linden they would find it tolerably rough 
sledding, and if there was any singing done a 
good many of them probably would not be able 
to join in the last verse. 

Immediately following this, our conductor 
confided to me that he had once had the honor 
of serving Mr. Clemens, whom he referred to as 
Mick Twine. He told me things about Mr. 
Clemens of which I had never heard. I do not 
think Mr. Clemens ever heard of them either. 
Then the brigadier — it was now after three 
o'clock, and between three and three-thirty he 
was a brigadier — drew my arm within his. 

"I, too, am an author," he stated. "It is not 
generally known, but I have written much. I 
wrote a book of which you may have heard — 
' The Wandering Jew.' " And he tapped himself 
on the bosom proudly. 

I said I had somehow contracted a notion 
that a party named Sue — Eugene Sue — had 
something to do with writing the work of that 
name. 

"Ah, but you are right there, my friend," he 
said. " Sue wrote ' The Wandering Jew ' the first 
time — as a novel, merely; but I wrote him much 
better — as a satire on the anti-Semitic move- 
ment." 

I surrendered without offering to strike an- 
other blow and from that time on he had his 
own way with us. The day, as I was pleased to 
[ 364 ] 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

note at the time, had begun mercifully to draw 
to a close; we were driving back to Paris, and 
he, sitting on the front seat, had just attained 
the highest post in the army under the regime 
of the last Empire, when he said: 

"Behold, m'sieur! We are now approaching 
a wine shop on the left. You were most gracious 
and kind in the matter of luncheon. Kindly 
permit me to do the honors now. It is a very 
good wine shop — I know it well. Shall we stop 
for a glass together, eh.^" 

It was the first time since we landed at Calais 
that a native-born person had offered to buy 
anything, and, being ever desirous to assist in 
the celebration of any truly notable occasion, 
I accepted and the car was stopped. We were 
at the portal of the wine shop, when he plucked 
at my sleeve, offering another suggestion: 

"The chauffeur now — he is a worthy fellow, 
that chauffeur. Shall we not invite the chauffeur 
to join us.f*" 

I was agreeable to that, too. So he called the 
chauffeur and the chauffeur disentangled his 
whiskers from the steering gear and came and 
joined us. The chauffeur and I each had a 
small glass of light wine, but the general took 
brandy. Then ensued a spirited dialogue be- 
tween him and the woman who kept the shop. 
Assuming that I had no interest in the matter, I 
studied the pictures behind the bar. Presently, 
having reduced the woman to a state of com- 
parative silence, he approached me. 
[365] 



EUROPE REVISED 



"M'sieur," he said, "I regret that this has 
happened. Because you are a foreigner and be- 
cause you know not our language, that woman 
would make an overcharge; but she forgot she 
had me to deal with. I am on guard! See her! 
She is now quelled! I have given her a lesson 
she will not soon forget. M'sieur, the correct 
amount of the bill is two-francs-ten. Give it to 
her and let us begone!" 

I still have that guide's name and address in 
my possession. At parting he pressed his card 
on me and asked me to keep it; and I did keep 
it. I shall be glad to loan it to any American 
who may be thinking of going to Paris. With 
the card in his pocket, he will know exactly 
where this guide lives; and then, when he is in 
need of a guide he can carefully go elsewhere 
and hire a guide. 

I almost failed to mention that before we 
parted he tried to induce us to buy something. 
He took us miles out of our way to a pottery 
and urged us to invest in its wares. This is the 
main purpose of every guide: to see that you 
buy something and afterward to collect his 
commission from the shopkeeper for having 
brought you to the shop. If you engage your 
guide through the porter at your hotel you will 
find that he steers you to the shops the hotel 
people have already recommended to you; but 
if you break the porter's heart by hiring your 
guide outside, independently, the guide steers, 
you to the shops that are on his own private list. 
[ 366 ] 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

Only once I saw a guide temporarily stumped, 
and that was in Venice. The skies were leaky 
that day and the weather was raw; and one of 
the ladies of the party wore pumps and silk 
stockings. For the protection of her ankles she 
decided to buy a pair of cloth gaiters; and, 
stating her intention, she started to go into a 
shop that dealt in those articles. The guide 
hesitated a moment only, then threw himself 
in her path. The shops hereabout were not 
to be trusted — the proprietors, without excep- 
tion, were rogues and extortioners. If madame 
would have patience for a few brief moments 
he would guarantee that she got what she 
wanted at an honest price. He seemed so 
desirous of protecting her that she consented 
to wait. 

In a minute, on a pretext, he excused himself 
and dived into one of the crooked ways that 
thread through all parts of Venice and make it 
possible for one who knows their windings to 
reach any part of the city without using the 
canals. Two of us secretly followed him. Be- 
yond the first turning he dived into a shoe shop. 
Emerging after a while he hurried back and led 
the lady to that same shop, and stood by, smil- 
ing softly, while she was fitted with gaiters. 
Until now evidently gaiters had not been on 
his list, but he had taken steps to remedy this; 
and, though his commission on a pair of sixty- 
cent gaiters could not have been very large yet, 
as some philosopher has so truly said, every lit- 
[367] 



EUROPE REVISED 



tie bit added to what you have makes just 
a modicum more. 

Indeed, the guide never overlooks the smallest 
bet. His whole mentality is focused on getting 
you inside a shop. Once you are there, he 
stations himself close behind you, reenforcing 
the combined importunities of the shopkeeper 
and his assembled staff with gentle suggestions. 
The depths of self-abasement to which a shop- 
keeper in Europe will descend in an effort to 
sell his goods surpasses the power of description. 
The London tradesman goes pretty far in this 
direction. Often he goes as far as the sidewalk, 
clinging to the hem of your garment and begging 
you to return for one more look. But the Con- 
tinentals are still worse. 

A Parisian shopkeeper would sell you the 
bones of his revered grandmother if you wanted 
them and he had them in stock; and he would 
have them in stock too, because, as I have stated 
once before, a true Parisian never throws away 
anything he can save. I heard of just one single 
instance where a customer desirous of having an 
article and willing to pay the price failed to get 
it; and that, I would say, stands without a 
parallel in the annals of commerce and barter. 

An American lady visiting her daughter, an 
art student in the Latin Quartier, was walking 
alone when she saw in a shop window a lace 
blouse she fancied. She went inside and by 
signs, since she knew no French, indicated that 
she wished to look at that blouse. The woman 
[368 1 







IN VENICE EVEN THE SIMPLE GONDOLIER HAS A SECRET trNDEESTANDING 
WITH ALL BRANCHES OF THE RETAIL TRADE 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

in charge shook her head, dechning even to take 
the garment out of the window. Convinced 
now, womanhke, that this particular blouse was 
the blouse she desired above all other blouses 
the American woman opened her purse and in- 
dicated that she was prepared to buy at the 
shopwoman's own valuation, without the privi- 
lege of examination. The shop woman showed 
deep pain at having to refuse the proposition, 
but refuse it she did; and the would-be buyer 
went home angry and perplexed and told her 
daughter what had happened. 

"It certainly is strange," the daughter said. 
"I thought everything in Paris, except possibly 
Napoleon's tomb, was for sale. This thing will 
repay investigation. Wait until I pin my hat 
on. Does my nose need powdering .f*" 

Her mother led her back to the shop of the 
blouse and then the puzzle was revealed. For 
it was the shop of a dry cleanser and the blouse 
belonged to some patron and was being displayed 
as a sample of the work done inside; but un- 
doubtedly such a thing never before happened 
in Paris and probably never will happen again. 

In Venice not only the guides and the hotel 
clerks and porters but even the simple gondolier 
has a secret understanding with all branches of 
the retail trade. You get into a long, snaky, 
black gondola and fee the beggar who pushes 
you off, and all the other beggars who have 
assisted in the pushing off or have merely con- 
tributed to the success of the operation by being 
[371 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



present, and you tell your gondolier in your 
best Italian or your worst pidgin English where 
you wish to go. It may be you are bound for 
the Rialto; or for the Bridge of Sighs, which is 
chiefly distinguished from all the other bridges 
by being the only covered one in the lot; or for 
the house of the lady Desdemona. The lady 
Desdemona never lived there or anywhere else, 
but the house where she would have lived, had 
she lived, is on exhibition daily from nine to 
five, admission one lira. Or perchance you want 
to visit one of the ducal palaces that are so 
numerous in Venice. These palaces are still 
tenanted by the descendants of the original 
proprietors ; one family has perhaps been living 
in one palace three or four hundred years. But 
now the family inhabits the top floor, doing 
light housekeeping up there, and the lower floor, 
where the art treasures, the tapestries and the 
family relics are, is in charge of a caretaker, who 
collects at the door and then leads you through. 
Having given the boatman explicit directions 
you settle back in your cushion seat to enjoy 
the trip. You marvel how he, standing at the 
stern, with his single oar fitted into a shallow 
notch of his steering post, propels the craft 
so swiftly and guides it so surely by those short, 
twisting strokes of his. Really, you reflect, it 
is rowing by shorthand. You are feasting your 
eyes on the wonderful color effects and the 
groupings that so enthuse the artist, and which 
he generally manages to botch and boggle when 
[ 372 ] 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

he seeks to commit them to canvas; and be- 
tweenwhiles you are wondering why all the de- 
spondent cats in Venice should have picked out 
the Grand Canal as the most suitable place in 
which to commit suicide, when— bump! — your 
gondola swings up against the landing piles in 
front of a glass factory and the entire force of 
helpers rush out and seize you by your arms — 
or by your legs, if handier — and try to drag you 
inside, while the affable and accommodating 
gondolier boosts you from behind. You fight 
them off, declaring passionately that you are 
not in the market for colored glass at this time. 
The hired hands protest; and the gondolier, 
cheated out of his commission, sorrows greatly, 
but obeys your command to move on. At least 
he pretends to obey it; but a minute later he 
brings you up broadside at the water-level 
doors of a shop dealing in antiques, known 
appropriately as antichitas, or at a mosaic shop 
or a curio shop. If ever you do succeed in 
reaching your destination it is by the exercise 
of much profanity and great firmness of will. 

The most insistent and pesky shopkeepers of 
all are those who hive in the ground floors of the 
professedly converted palaces that face on three 
sides of the Square of Saint Mark's. You dare 
not hesitate for the smallest fractional part of 
a second in front of a shop here. Lurking inside 
the open door is a husky puller-in ; and he dashes 
out and grabs hold of you and will not let go, 
begging you in spaghettified English to come in 
[373] 



EUROPE REVISED 



and examine his unapproachable assortment of 
bargains. You are not compelled to buy, he 
tells you; he only wants you to gaze on his 
beautiful things. Believe him not! Venture 
inside and decline to purchase and he will think 
up new and subtle Italian forms of insult and 
insolence to visit on you. They will have brass 
bands out for you if you invest and brass 
knuckles if you do not. 

There is but one way to escape from their 
everlasting persecutions, and that is to flee to 
the center of the square and enjoy the company 
of the pigeons and the photographers. They — 
the pigeons, I mean — belong to the oldest family 
in Venice; their lineage is of the purest and most 
undefiled. For upward of seven hundred years 
the authorities of the city have been feeding 
and protecting the pigeons, of which these 
countless blue-and-bronze flocks are the direct 
descendants. They are true aristocrats; and, 
like true aristocrats, they are content to live 
on the public funds and grow fat and sassy 
thereon, paying nothing in return. 

No; I take that part back — they do pay 
something in return; a full measure. They pay 
by the beauty of their presence, and they are 
surely very beautiful, with their dainty mincing 
pink feet and the sheen on the proudly arched 
breast coverts of the cock birds; and they pay 
by giving you their trust and their friendship. 
To gobble the gifts of dried peas, which you 
buy in little cornucopias from convenient ven- 
[374 1 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

ders for distribution among them, they come 
wheehng in winged battaHons, creaking and coo- 
ing, and ahght on your head and shoulders in 
that perfect confidence which so dehghts humans 
when wild or half-wild creatures bestow it on 
us, though, at every opportunity, we do our 
level best to destroy it by hunting and harrying 
them to death. 

At night, when the moon is up, is the time 
to visit this spot. Standing here, with the 
looming pile of the Doge's Palace bulked be- 
hind you, and the gorgeous but somewhat garish 
decorations of the great cathedral softened and 
soothed into perfection of outline and coloring 
by the half light, you can for the moment forget 
the fallen state of Venice, and your imagination 
peoples the splendid plaza for you with the 
ghosts of its dead and vanished greatnesses. 
You conceive of the place as it must have looked 
in those old, brave, wicked days, filled all with 
knights, with red-robed cardinals and clanking 
men at arms, with fair ladies and grave senators, 
slinking bravos and hired assassins — and all so 
gay with silk and satin and glittering steel and 
spangling gems. 

By the eye of your mind you see His Illumi- 
nated Excellency, the frosted Christmas card, as 
he bows low before His Eminence, the pink 
Easter egg; you see, half hidden behind the 
shadowed columns of the long portico, an illus- 
trated Sunday supplement in six colors bargain- 
ing with a stick of striped peppermint candy to 
[ 375 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



have his best friend stabbed in the back before 
morning; you see giddy poster designs carrying 
on flirtations with hand-painted valentines; you 
catch the love-making, overhear the intriguing, 
and scent the plotting; you are an eyewitness to 
a slice out of the life of the most sinister, the 
most artistic, and the most murderous period of 
Italian history. 

But by day imperious Caesar, dead and 
turn'd to clay, stops a hole to keep the wind 
away; and the wild ass of the ninety-day tour 
stamps his heedless hoofs over the spot where 
sleeps the dust of departed grandeur. By day 
the chug of the motor boat routs out old sleepy 
echoes from cracked and crannied ruins; the 
burnished golden frescoes of Saint Mark's blare at 
you as with brazen trumpets ; every third medie- 
val church has been turned into a moving-pic- 
ture place; and the shopkeeping parasites buzz 
about you in vermin swarms and bore holes in 
your pocketbook until it is all one large painful 
welt. The emblem of Venice is the winged lion. 
It should be the tapeworm. 

In Rome it appears to be a standing rule that 
every authenticated guide shall be a violent 
Socialist and therefore rampingly anticlerical in 
all his views. We were in Rome during the 
season of pilgrimages. From all parts of Italy, 
from Bohemia and Hungary and Spain and 
Tyrol, and even from France, groups of peasants 
had come to Rome to worship in their mother 
church and be blessed by the supreme pontiff 
[376 1 



VENICE AND THE VENISONS 

of their faith. At all hours of the day they were 
passing through the streets, bound for Saint 
Peter's or the Vatican, the women with kerchiefs 
over their heads, the men in their Sunday best, 
and. all with badges and tokens on their breasts. 

At the head of each straggling procession 
would be a black-frocked village priest, at once 
proud and humble, nervous and exalted. A man 
might be of any religion or of no religion at all, 
and yet I fail to see how he could watch, un- 
moved, the uplifted faces of these people as 
they clumped over the cobbles of the Holy City, 
praying as they went. Some of them had been 
saving up all their lives, I imagine, against the 
coming of this great day; but our guide — and 
we tried three different ones — never beheld this 
sight that he did not sneer at it; and not once 
did he fail to point out that most of the pilgrims 
were middle-aged or old, taking this as proof of 
his claim that the Church no longer kept its 
hold on the younger people, even among the 
peasant classes. The still more frequent specta- 
cle of a marching line of students of one of the 
holy colleges, with each group wearing the dis- 
tinctive insignia of its own country — ^purple 
robes or green sashes, or what not — would excite 
him to the verge of a spasm. 

But then he was always verging on a spasm 
anyway — spasms were his normal state. 



377 



CHAPTER XX 

THE COMBUSTIBLE CAPTAIN OF 

VIENNA 



OUR guide in Vienna was the most 
stupid human being I ever saw. He 
was profoundly ignorant on a tre- 
mendously wide range of subjects; he 
had a most complete repertoire of ignorance. He 
must have spent years of study to store up so 
much interesting misinformation. This guide 
was much addicted to indulgence of a peculiar 
form of twisted English and at odd moments 
given to the consumption of a delicacy of strictly 
Germanic origin, known in the language of the 
Teutons as a rollmops. A rollmops consists of a 
large dilled cucumber, with a pickled herring 
coiled round it ready to strike, in the design of 
the rattlesnake-and-pinetree flag of the Revolu- 
tion, the motto in both instances being in effect : 
"Don't monkey with the buzz saw!" He car- 
ried his rollmops in his pocket send frequently, in 
art galleries or elsewhere, would draw it out and 
[378 1 



THE COMBUSTIBLE CAPTAIN OF VIENNA 

nibble it, while disseminating inaccuracies touch- 
ing on pictures and statues and things. 

Among other places, he took us to the oldest 
church in Vienna. As I now recollect it was 
six hundred years old. No; on second thought 
I will say it must have been older than that. 
No church could possibly become so moldy 
and mangy looking as that church in only 
six hundred years. The object in this church 
that interested me most was contained in an 
ornate glass case placed near the altar and 
alongside the relics held to be sacred. It did 
not exactly please me to gaze at this article; 
but the thing had a fascination for me; I will 
not deny that. 

It seems that a couple of centuries ago there 
was an officer in Vienna, a captain in rank and 
a Frenchman by birth, who, in the midst of 
disorders and licentiousness, lived so godly and 
so sanctified a life that his soldiers took it into 
their heads that he was really a saint, or at 
least had the making of a first-rate saint in 
him, and, therefore, must lead a charmed life. 
So — thus runs the tale — some of them laid a 
wager with certain Doubting Thomases, also 
soldiers, that neither by fire nor water, neither 
by rope nor poison, could he take harm to him- 
self. Finally they decided on fire for the test. 
So they waited until he slept — those simple, 
honest, chuckle-headed chaps — and then they 
slipped in with a lighted torch and touched 
him off. 

[ 379 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



Well, sir, the joke certainly was on those 
soldiers. He burned up with all the spontaneous 
enthusiasm of a celluloid comb. For qualities 
of instantaneous combustion he must have been 
the equal of any small-town theater that ever 
was built — with one exit. He was practically a 
total loss and there was no insurance. 

They still have him, or what is left of him, 
in that glass case. He did not exactly suffer 
martyrdom— though probably he personally did 
not notice any very great difference — and so he 
has not been canonized; nevertheless, they have 
him there in that church. In all Europe I only 
saw one sight to match him, and that was down 
in the crypt under the Church of the Capuchins, 
in Rome, where the dissected cadavers of four 
thousand dead — but not gone — monks are 
worked up into decorations. There are altars 
made of their skulls, and chandeliers made of 
their thigh bones; frescoes of their spines; mo- 
saics of their teeth and dried muscles ; cozy cor- 
ners of their femurs and pelves and tibiae. There 
are two classes of travelers I would strongly 
advise not to visit the crypt of the Capuchins' 
Church — those who are just about to have dinner 
and want to have it, and those who have just 
had dinner and want to keep on having it. 

At the royal palace in Vienna we saw the 
finest, largest, and gaudiest collection of crown 
jewels extant. That guide of ours seemed to 
think he had done his whole duty toward us 
and could call it a day and knock off when he 
[380 1 



--U4JLJ4 




ABROAD WE HOUSE OUR EMBASSIES UP BACK STREETS, 
NEXT DOOR TO BIRD AND ANIMAL STORES 



THE COMBUSTIBLE CAPTAIN OF VIENNA 

led US up to the jewel collections, where each 
case was surrounded by pop-eyed American tour- 
ists taking on flesh at the sight of all those spark- 
lers and figuring up the grand total of their valua- 
tion in dollars, on the basis of so many hundreds 
of carats at so many hundred dollars a carat, 
until reason tottered on her throne — and did 
not have so very far to totter, either. 

The display of all those gems, however, did 
not especially excite me. There were too many 
of them and they were too large. A blue Kim- 
berley in a hotel clerk's shirtfront or a pigeon- 
blood ruby on a faro dealer's little finger might 
hold my attention and win my admiration; but 
where jewels are piled up in heaps like anthracite 
in a coal bin they thrill me no more than the 
anthracite would. A quart measure of diamonds 
of the average size of a big hailstone does not 
make me think of diamonds but of hailstones. I 
could remain as calm in their presence as I 
should in the presence of a quart of cracked ice; 
in fact, calmer than I should remain in the 
presence of a quart of cracked ice in Italy, say, 
where there is not that much ice, cracked or 
otherwise. In Italy a bucketful of ice would 
be worth traveling miles to see. You could sell 
tickets for it. 

In one of the smaller rooms of the palace we 
came on a casket containing a necklace of great 
smoldering rubies and a pair of bracelets to 
match. They were as big as cranberries and as 
red as blood — as red as arterial blood. And 
[383] 



EUROPE REVISED 



when, on consulting the guidebook, we read the 
history of those rubies the sight of them brought 
a picture to our minds, for they had been a part 
of the wedding dowry of Marie Antoinette. 
Once on a time this necklace had spanned the 
slender white throat that was later to be sheared 
by the guillotine, and these bracelets had clasped 
the same white wrists that were roped together 
with an ell of hangman's hemp on the day the 
desolated queen rode, in her patched and shab- 
by gown, to the Place de la Revolution. 

I had seen paintings in plenty and read de- 
scriptions galore of that last ride of the Widow 
Capet going to her death in the tumbril, with 
the priest at her side and her poor, fettered arms 
twisted behind her, and her white face bared to 
the jeers of the mob; but the physical presence 
of those precious useless baubles, which had cost 
so much and yet had bought so little for her, 
made more vivid to me than any picture or any 
story the most sublime tragedy of The Terror — 
the tragedy of those two bound hands. 



[384] 



CHAPTER XXI 
OLD MASTERS AND OTHER RUINS 



IT is naturally a fine thing for one, and grati- 
fying, to acquire a thorough art education. 
Personally I do not in the least regret the 
time I gave and the study I devoted to 
acquiring mine. I regard those two weeks as 
having been well spent. 

I shall not do it soon again, however, for now 
I know all about art. Let others who have not 
enjoyed my advantages take up this study. Let 
others scour the art galleries of Europe seeking 
masterpieces. All of them contain masterpieces 
and most of them need scouring. As for me and 
mine, we shall go elsewhere. I love my art, but I 
am not fanatical on the subject. There is an- 
other side of my nature to which an appeal may 
be made. I can take my Old Masters or I can 
leave them be. That is the way I am organized 
— I have self-control. 

I shall not deny that the earlier stages of my 
art education were fraught with agreeable little 
surprises. Not soon shall I forget the flush of 
[ 385 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



satisfaction which ran through me on learning 
that this man Dore's name was pronounced Kke 
the first two notes in the music scale, instead of 
like a Cape Cod fishing boat. And lingering in 
my mind as a fragrant memory is the day when 
I first discovered that Spagnoletto was neither a 
musical instrument nor something to be served 
au gratin and eaten with a fork. Such acquire- 
ments as these are very precious to me. 

But for the time being I have had enough. 
At this hour of writing I feel that I am stocked 
up with enough of Bouguereau's sorrel ladies 
and Titian's chestnut ones and Rubens' bay 
ones and Velasquez's pintos to last me, at a 
conservative estimate, for about seventy-five 
years. I am too young as a theatergoer to recall 
much about Lydia Thompson's Blondes, but I 
have seen sufficient of Botticelli's to do me am- 
ply well for a spell. I am still willing to walk 
a good distance to gaze on one of Rembrandt's 
portraits of one of his kinfolks, though I must 
say he certainly did have a lot of mighty homely 
relatives; and any time there is a first-rate 
Millet or Corot or Meissonier in the neighbor- 
hood I wish somebody would drop me a line, 
giving the address. As for pictures by Tinto- 
retto, showing Venetian Doges hobnobbing in- 
formally with members of the Holy Family, and 
Raphael's angels, and Michelangelo's lost souls, 
and Guides, and Murillos, I have had enough 
to do me for months and months and months. 
Nor am I in the market for any of the dead 
[386 1 



OLD MASTERS AND OTHER RUINS 

fish of the Flemish school. Judging by what I 
have observed, practically all the Flemish paint- 
ers were devout churchmen and painted their 
pictures on Friday. 

There was just one drawback to my complete 
enjoyment of that part of our European travels 
we devoted to art. We would go to an art 
gallery, hire a guide and start through. Pres- 
ently I would come to a picture that struck me 
as being distinctly worth while. To my un- 
tutored conceptions it possessed unlimited beau- 
ty. There was, it seemed to me, life in the 
figures, reality in the colors, grace in the group- 
ing. And then, just when I was beginning really 
to enjoy it, the guide would come and snatch 
me away. 

He would tell me the picture I thought I ad- 
mired was of no account whatsoever — that the 
artist who painted it had not yet been dead 
long enough to give his work any permanent 
value; and he would drag me off to look at a 
cracked and crumbling canvas depicting a col- 
lection of saints of lacquered complexions and 
hardwood expressions, with cast-iron trees stand- 
ing up against cotton-batting clouds in the 
background, and a few extra halos floating round 
indiscriminately, like sun dogs on a showery 
day, and, up above, the family entrance into 
heaven hospitably ajar; and he would command 
me to bask my soul in this magnificent example 
of real art and not waste time on inconsequential 
and trivial things. Guides have the same idea 
[387 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



of an artist that a Chinaman entertains for an 
egg. A fresh egg or a fresh artist will not do. 
It must have the perfume of antiquity behind 
it to make it attractive. 

At the Louvre, in Paris, on the first day of 
the two we spent there, we had for our guide a 
tall, educated Prussian, who had an air about 
him of being an ex-ofiicer of the army. All over 
the Continent you are constantly running into 
men engaged in all manner of legitimate and 
dubious callings, who somehow impress you as 
having served in the army of some other coun- 
try than the one in which you find them. After 
this man had been chaperoning us about for some 
hours and we had stopped to rest, he told a 
good story. It may not have been true — it has 
been my experience that very few good stories 
are true; but it served aptly to illustrate a cer- 
tain type of American tourist numerously en- 
countered abroad. 

"There were two of them," he said in his 
excellent English, "a gentleman and his wife; 
and from what I saw of them I judged them to 
be very wealthy. They were interested in seeing 
only such things as had been recommended by 
the guidebook. The husband would tell me 
they desired to see such and such a picture or 
statue. I would escort them to it and they 
would glance at it indiflPerently, and the gentle- 
man would take out his lead pencil and check 
off that particular object in the book; and then 
he would say: *A11 right — we've seen that; now 
[388 1 



OLD MASTERS AND OTHER RUINS 

let's find out what we want to look at next.' 
We still serve a good many people like that — 
not so many as formerly, but still a good many. 

"Finally I decided to try a little scheme of 
my own. I wanted to see whether I could really 
win their admiration for something. I picked 
out a medium-size painting of no particular im- 
portance and, pointing to it, said impressively: 
'Here, m'sieur, is a picture worth a million dol- 
lars — without the frame ! ' 

" ' What's that ? ' he demanded excitedly. Then 
he called to his wife, who had strayed ahead a 
few steps. "Henrietta,' he said, 'come back 
here — you're missing something. There's a pic- 
ture there that's worth a million dollars — and 
without the frame, too, mind you!' 

"She came hurrying back and for ten minutes 
they stood there drinking in that picture. Every 
second they discovered new and subtle beauties 
in it. I could hardly induce them to go on for 
the rest of the tour, and the next day they came 
back for another soul-feast in front of it." 

Later along, that guide confided to me that 
in his opinion I had a keen appreciation of art, 
much keener than the average lay tourist. The 
compliment went straight to my head. It was 
seeking the point of least resistance, I suppose. 
I branched out and undertook to discuss art 
matters with him on a more familiar basis. It 
was a mistake; but before I realized that it was 
a mistake I was out in the undertow sixty yards 
from shore, going down for the third time, with 
[389] 



EUROPE REVISED 



a low gurgling cry. He did not put out to save 
me, either; he left me to sink in the heaving and 
abysmal sea of my own fathomless ignorance. 
He just stood there and let me drown. It was 
a cruel thing, for which I can never forgive him. 

In my own defense let me say, however, that 
this fatal indiscretion was committed before I 
had completed my art education. It was after 
we had gone from France to Germany, and to 
Austria, and to Italy, that I learned the great 
lesson about art — which is that whenever and 
wherever you meet a picture that seems to you 
reasonably lifelike it is nine times in ten of no 
consequence whatsoever; and, unless you are 
willing to be regarded as a mere ignoramus, you 
should straightway leave it and go and find some 
ancient picture of a group of overdressed clothing 
dummies masquerading as angels or martyrs, 
and stand before that one and carry on regard- 
less. 

When in doubt, look up a picture of Saint 
Sebastian. You never experience any difficulty 
in finding him — he is always represented as 
wearing very few clothes, being shot full of 
arrows to such an extent that clothes would not 
fit him anyway. Or else seek out Saint Lau- 
rence, who is invariably featured in connection 
with a gridiron; or Saint Bartholomew, who, 
you remember, achieved canonization through 
a process of flaying, and is therefore shown with 
his skin folded neatly and carried over his arm 
like a spring overcoat. 

[390 1 




IT MUST BE MONTHS BEFOEE SOME OF THEM QUIT PANTING 



OLD MASTERS AND OTHER RUINS 

Following this routine you make no mistakes. 
Everybody is bound to accept you as one pos- 
sessing a deep knowledge of art, and not mere 
surface art either, but the innermost meanings 
and conceptions of art. Only sometimes I did 
get to wishing that the Old Masters had left a 
little more to the imagination. They never 
withheld any of the painful particulars. It 
seemed to me they cheapened the glorious end 
of those immortal fathers of the faith by in- 
cluding the details of the martyrdom in every 
picture. Still, I would not have that admission 
get out and obtain general circulation. It might 
be used against me as an argument that my 
artistic education was grounded on a false 
foundation. 

It was in Rome, while we were doing the 
Vatican, that our guide furnished us with a 
sight that, considered as a human experience, 
was worth more to me than a year of Old Mas- 
ters and Young Messers. We had pushed our 
poor blistered feet — a dozen or more of us — 
past miles of paintings and sculptures and relics 
and art objects, and we were tired — oh, so tired ! 
Our eyes ached and our shoes hurt us; and the 
calves of our legs quivered as we trailed along 
from gallery to corridor, and from corridor back 
to gallery. 

We had visited the Sistine Chapel; and, such 
was our weariness, we had even declined to be- 
come excited over Michelangelo's great picture 
of the Last Judgment. I was disappointed, too, 
[393] 



EUROPE REVISED 



that he had omitted to include in his collection 
of damned souls a number of persons I had 
confidently and happily expected would be 
present. I saw no one there even remotely re- 
sembling my conception of the person who first 
originated and promulgated the doctrine that 
all small children should be told at the earliest 
possible moment that there is no Santa Claus. 
That was a very severe blow to me, because I 
had always believed that the descent to eternal 
perdition would be incomplete unless he had a 
front seat. And the man who first hit on the 
plan of employing child labor on night shifts 
in cotton factories — he was unaccountably ab- 
sent too. And likewise the original inventor of 
the toy pistol ; in fact the absentees were entirely 
too numerous to suit me. There was one thing, 
though, to be said in praise of Michelangelo's 
Last Judgment; it was too large and too compli- 
cated to be reproduced successfully on a souvenir 
postal card; and I think we should all be very 
grateful for that mercy anyway. 

As I was saying, we had left the Sistine Chapel 
a mile or so behind us and had dragged our ex- 
hausted frames as far as an arched upper portico 
in a wing of the great palace, overlooking a 
paved courtyard inclosed at its farther end bj' 
a side wall of Saint Peter's. We saw, in another 
portico similar to the one where we had halted 
and running parallel to it, long rows of peasants, 
all kneeling and all with their faces turned in 
the same direction. 

[394] 



OLD MASTERS AND OTHER RUINS 

"Wait here a minute," said our guide. "I 
think you will see something not included in 
the regular itinerary of the day." 

So we waited. In a minute or two the long 
lines of kneeling peasants raised a hymn; the 
sound of it came to us in quavering snatches. 
Through the aisle formed by their bodies a pro- 
cession passed the length of the long portico 
and back to the starting point. First came 
Swiss Guards in their gay piebald uniforms, 
carrying strange-looking pikes and halberds ; and 
behind them were churchly dignitaries, all bared 
of head; and last of all came a very old and 
very feeble man, dressed in white, with a wide- 
brimmed white hat — and he had white hair 
and a white face, which seemed drawn and worn, 
but very gentle and kindly and beneficent. 

He held his right arm aloft, with the first two 
fingers extended in the gesture of the apostolic 
benediction. He was so far away from us that 
in perspective his profile was reduced to the 
miniature proportions of a head on a postage 
stamp; but, all the same, the lines of it stood 
out clear and distinct. It was His Holiness, 
Pope Pius the Tenth, blessing a pilgrimage. 

All the guides in Rome follow a regular routine 
with the tourist. First, of course, they steer 
you into certain shops in the hope that you will 
buy something and thereby enable them to earn 
commissions. Then, in turn, they carry you to 
an art gallery, to a church, and to a palace, 
with stops at other shops interspersed between; 
[395 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



and invariably they wind up in the vicinity of 
some of the ruins. Ruins is a Roman guide's 
middle name; ruins are his one best bet. In 
Rome I saw ruins until I was one myself. 

We devoted practically an entire day to ruins. 
That was the day we drove out the Appian Way, 
glorious in legend and tale, but not quite so 
all-fired glorious when you are reeling over its 
rough and rutted pavement in an elderly and 
indisposed open carriage, behind a pair of half- 
broken Roman-nosed horses which insist on 
walking on their hind legs whenever they tire 
of going on four. The Appian Way, as at 
present constituted, is a considerable disap- 
pointment. For long stretches it runs between 
high stone walls, broken at intervals by gate- 
ways, where votive lamps burn before small 
shrines, and by the tombs of such illustrious 
dead as Seneca and the Horatii and the Curiatii. 
At more frequent intervals are small wine grog- 
geries. Being built mainly of Italian marble, 
which is the most enduring and the most un- 
yielding substance to be found in all Italy — 
except a linen collar that has been starched in 
an Italian laundry — the tombs are in a pretty 
fair state of preservation; but the inns, without 
exception, stand most desperately in need of im- 
mediate repairing. 

A cow in Italy is known by the company she 

keeps ; she rambles about, in and out of the open 

parlor of the wayside inn, mingling freely with 

the patrons and the members of the proprietor's 

[396] 



OLD MASTERS AND OTHER RUINS 

household. Along the Appian Way a cow never 
seems to care whom she runs with; and the same 
is true of the domestic fowls and the family 
donkey. A donkey will spend his day in the 
doorway of a wine shop when he might just as 
well be enjoying the more sanitary and less 
crowded surroundings of a stable. It only goes to 
show what an ass a donkey is. 

Anon, as the fancy writers say, we skirted one 
of the many wrecked aqueducts that go looping 
across country to the distant hills, like great 
stone straddlebugs. In the vicinity of Rome 
you are rarely out of sight of one of these aque- 
ducts. The ancient Roman rulers, you know, 
curried the favor of the populace by opening 
baths. A modern ruler could win undying 
popularity by closing up a few. 

We slowed up at the Circus of Romulus and 
found it a very sad circus, as such things go — 
no elevated stage, no hippodrome track, no cen- 
terpole, no trapeze, and only one ring. P. T. 
Barnum would have been ashamed to own it. 
A broken wall, following the lines of an irregular 
oval; a cabbage patch where the arena had been; 
and various tumble-down farmsheds built into 
the shattered masonry — -this was the Circus 
of Romulus. However, it was not the circus of 
the original Romulus, but of a degenerate suc- 
cessor of the same name who rose suddenly and 
fell abruptly after the Christian era was well 
begun. Old John J. Romulus would not have 
stood for that circus a minute. 
[397 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



No ride on the Appian Way is regarded as 
complete without half an hour's stop at the 
Catacombs of Saint Calixtus; so we stopped. 
Guided by a brown Trappist, and all of us bear- 
ing twisted tapers in our hands, we descended 
by stone steps deep under the skin of the earth 
and wandered through dim, dank underground 
passages, where thousands of early Christians 
had lived and hid, and held clandestine worship 
before rude stone altars, and had died and been 
buried — died in a highly unpleasant fashion, 
some of them. 

The experience was impressive, but malarial. 
Coming away from there I had an argument 
with a fellow American. He said that if we had 
these Catacombs in America we should un- 
doubtedly enlarge them and put in band stands 
and lunch places, and altogether make them 
more attractive for picnic parties and Sunday 
excursionists. I contended, on the other hand, 
that if they were in America the authorities 
would close them up and protect the moldered 
bones of those early Christians from the vulgar 
gaze and prying fingers of every impious relic 
hunter who might come along. The dispute 
rose higher and grew warmer until I offered to 
bet him fifty dollars that I was right and he was 
wrong. He took me up promptly — he had 
sporting instincts; I'll say that for him — and 
we shook hands on it then and there to bind the 
wager. I expect to win that bet. 

We had turned off the Appian Way and were 
[398] 




IF WE HAD THESE CATACOMBS IN AMERICA WE SHOULD MAKE THEM MORE 
ATTRACTIVE FOR PICNIC PARTIES 



OLD MASTERS ^AND OTHER RUINS 

crossing a corner of that unutterably hideous 
stretch of tortured and distorted waste known 
as the Campagna, which goes tumbKng away 
to the blue Alban Mountains, when we came 
on the scene of an accident. A two-wheeled 
mule cart, proceeding along a crossroad, with 
the driver asleep in his canopied seat, had been 
hit by a speeding automobile and knocked gal- 
ley-west. The automobile had sped on — so we 
were excitedly informed by some other tourists 
who had witnessed the collision — leaving the 
wreckage bottom side up in the ditch. The 
mule was on her back, all entangled in the 
twisted ruination of her gaudy gear, kicking out 
in that restrained and genteel fashion in which 
a mule always kicks when she is desirous of 
protesting against existing conditions, but is 
wishful not to damage herself while so doing. 
The tourists, aided by half a dozen peasants, had 
dragged the driver out from beneath the heavy 
cart and had carried him to a pile of mucky 
straw beneath the eaves of a stable. He was 
stretched full length on his back, senseless and 
deathly pale under the smeared grime on his 
face. There was no blood; but inside his torn 
shirt his chest had a caved-in look, as though 
the ribs had been crushed flat, and he seemed 
not to breathe at all. Only his fingers moved. 
They kept twitching, as though his life was run- 
ning out of him through his finger ends. One 
felt that if he would but grip his hands he might 
stay its flight and hold it in. 
[401] 



EUROPE REVISED 



Just as we jumped out of our carriage a young 
peasant woman, who had been bending over the 
injured man, set up a shrill outcry, which was 
instantly answered from behind us; and looking 
round we saw, running through the bare fields, 
a great, bulksome old woman, with her arms 
outspread and her face set in a tragic shape, 
shrieking as she sped toward us in her ungainly 
wallowing course. She was the injured man's 
mother, we judged — or possibly his grandmother. 

There was nothing we could do for the human 
victim. Our guides, gaving questioned the as- 
sembled natives, told us there was no hospital 
to which he might be taken and that a neigh- 
borhood physician had already been sent for. 
So, having no desire to look on the grief of his 
mother — if she was his mother — a young Aus- 
trian and I turned our attention to the neglected 
mule. We felt that we could at least render a 
little first aid there. We had our pocket-knives 
out and were slashing away at the twisted maze 
of ropes and straps that bound the brute down 
between the shafts, when a particularly shrill 
chorus of shrieks checked us. We stood up and 
faced about, figuring that the poor devil on the 
muck heap had died and that his people were 
bemoaning his death. That was not it at all. 
The entire group, including the fat old woman, 
were screaming at us and shaking their clenched 
fists at us, warning us not to damage that har- 
ness with our knives. Feeling ran high, and 
threatened to run higher, 
[ 402 ] 



OLD MASTERS ^^ND OTHER RUINS 



So, having no desire to be mobbed on the 
spot, we desisted and put up our knives; and 
after a while we got back into our carriage and 
drove on, leaving the capsized mule still belly-up 
in the debris, lashing out carefully with her 
skinned legs at the trappings that bound her; 
and the driver was still prone on the dunghill, 
with his fingers twitching more feebly now, as 
though the life had almost entirely fled out of 
him — a grim little tragedy set in the edge of a 
wide and aching desolation! We never found 
out his name or learned how he fared — whether 
he lived or died, and if he died how long he lived 
before he died. It is a puzzle which will always 
lie unanswered at the back of my mind, and I 
know that in odd moments it will return to 
torment me. I will bet one thing, though — 
nobody else tried to cut that mule out of her 
harness. 

In the chill late afternoon of a Roman day 
the guides brought us back to the city and took 
us down into the Roman Forum, which is in a 
hollow instead of being up on a hill as most 
folks imagine it to be until they go to Rome 
and see it; and we finished up the day at the 
Golden House of Nero, hard by the vast ruins 
of the Coliseum. We had already visited the 
Forum once; so this time we did not stay long; 
just long enough for some ambitious pickpocket 
to get a wallet out of my hip pocket while I was 
pushing forward with a flock of other human 
sheep for a better look at the ruined portico 
[403 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



wherein Mark Antony stood when he dehvered 
his justly popular funeral oration over the body 
of the murdered Csesar. I never did admire the 
character of Mark Antony with any degree of 
extravagance, and since this experience I have 
felt actually bitter toward him. 

The guidebooks say that no visitor to Rome 
should miss seeing the Golden House of Nero. 
When a guidebook tries to be humorous it only 
succeeds in being foolish. Practical jokes are 
out of place in a guidebook anyway. Imagine 
a large, old-fashioned brick smokehouse, which 
has been struck by lightning, burned to the roots 
and buried in the wreckage, and the site used 
as a pasture land for goats for a great many 
years; imagine the debris as having been dug 
out subsequently until a few of the foundation 
lines are visible; surround the whole with dis- 
tressingly homely buildings of a modern aspect, 
and stir in a miscellaneous seasoning of beggars 
and loafers and souvenir venders — and you have 
the Golden House where Nero meant to round 
out a life already replete with incident and 
abounding in romance, but was deterred from 
so doing by reason of being cut down in the 
midst of his activities at a comparatively early 
age. 

In the presence of the Golden House of Nero 
I did my level best to recreate before my mind's 
eye the scenes that had been enacted here once 
on a time. I tried to picture this moldy, knee- 
high wall as a great glittering palace; and yonder 
[404] 



OLD MASTERS^ AND OTHER RUINS 

broken roadbed as a splendid Roman highway; 
and those American-looking tenements on the 
surrounding hills as the marble dwellings of the 
emperors; and all the broken pillars and shat- 
tered porticoes in the distance as arches of 
triumph and temples of the gods. I tried to 
convert the clustering mendicants into bar- 
barian prisoners clanking by, chained at wrist 
and neck and ankle; I sought to imagine the 
pestersome flower venders as being vestal virgins; 
the two unkempt policemen who loafed nearby, 
as centurions of the guard ; the passing populace 
as grave senators in snowy togas; the flaunting 
underwear on the many clotheslines as silken 
banners and gilded trappings. I could not make 
it. I tried until I was lame in both legs and my 
back was strained. It was no go. 

If I had been a poet or a historian, or a person 
full of Chianti, I presume I might have done it; 
but I am no poet and I had not been drinking. 
All I could think of was that the guide on my 
left had eaten too much garlic and that the 
guide on my right had not eaten enough. So 
in self-defense I went away and ate a few 
strands of garlic myself; for I had learned the 
great lesson of the proverb: 

When in Rome be an aroma! 



[405 



CHAPTER XXII 

STILL MORE RUINS, MOSTLY ITALIAN 
ONES 



WHEN I reached Pompeii the situa- 
tion was different. I could conjure 
up an illusion there — the biggest, 
most vivid illusion I have been privi- 
leged to harbor since I was a small boy. It was 
worth spending four days in Naples for the sake 
of spending half a day in Pompeii; and if you 
know Naples you will readily understand what 
a high compliment that is for Pompeii. 

To reach Pompeii from Naples we followed a 
somewhat roundabout route; and that trip was 
distinctly worth while too. It provided a most 
pleasing foretaste of what was to come. Once 
we had cleared the packed and festering sub- 
urbs, we went flanking across a terminal vertebra 
of the mountain range that sprawls lengthwise 
of the land of Italy, like a great spiny-backed 
crocodile sunning itself, with its tail in the 
Tyrrhenian Sea and its snout in the Piedmonts; 
and when we had done this we came out on a 
highway that skirted the bay. 
[406 1 



STILJ. MORE RUINS 



There were gaps in the hills, through which 
we caught glimpses of the city, lying miles away 
in its natural amphitheater ; and at that distance 
we could revel in its picturesqueness and forget 
its bouquet of weird stenches. We could even 
forget that the automobile we had hired for the 
excursion had one foot in the grave and several 
of its most important vital organs in the repair 
shop. I reckon that was the first automobile 
built. No; I take that back. It never was a 
first — it must have been a second to start with. 

I once owned a half interest in a sick auto- 
mobile. It was one of those old-fashioned, late 
Victorian automobiles, cut princesse style, with 
a plaquette in the back; and it looked like a 
cross between a flat-bed job press and a tailor's 
goose. It broke down so easily and was towed 
in so often by more powerful machines that 
every time a big car passed it on the road it 
stopped right where it was and nickered. Of a 
morning we would start out in that car filled 
with high hopes and bright anticipations, but 
eventide would find us returning homeward 
close behind a bigger automobile, in a relation- 
ship strongly suggestive of the one pictured in 
the well-known Nature Group entitled : " Mother 
Hippo, With Young." We refused an offer of 
four hundred dollars for that machine. It had 
more than four hundred dollars' worth of things 
the matter with it. 

The car we chartered at Naples for our trip to 
Pompeii reminded me very strongly of that 
[407] 



EUROPE REVISED 



other car of which I was part owner. Between 
them there was a strong family resemblance, 
not alone in looks but in deportment also. For 
patient endurance of manifold ills, for an inex- 
haustible capacity in developing new and dis- 
tressing symptoms at critical moments, for 
cheerful willingness to play foal to some other 
car's dam, they might have been colts out of 
the same litter. Nevertheless, between intervals 
of breaking down and starting up again, and 
being helped along by friendly passer-by auto- 
mobiles, we enjoyed the ride from Naples. We 
enjoyed every inch of it. 

Part of the way we skirted the hobs of the 
great witches' caldron of Vesuvius. On this 
day the resident demons must have been stirring 
their brew with special enthusiasm, for the 
smoky smudge which always wreathes its lips 
had increased to a great billowy plume that lay 
along the naked flanges of the devil mountain 
for miles and miles. Now we would go puffing 
and panting through some small outlying en- 
viron of the city. Always the principal products 
of such a village seemed to be young babies and 
macaroni drying in the sun. I am still reason- 
ably fond of babies, but I date my loss of appetite 
for imported macaroni from that hour. Now we 
would emerge on a rocky headland and below 
us would be the sea, eternally young and dim- 
pling like a maiden's cheek; but the crags above 
were eternally old and all gashed with wrinkles 
and seamed with folds, like the jowls of an an- 
[ 408 ] 



STILL ^MORE RUINS 



cient squaw. Then for a distance we would run 
right along the face of the cliff. Directly be- 
neath us we could see little stone huts of fisher- 
men clinging to the rocks just above high-water 
mark, like so many gray limpets; and then, 
looking up, we would catch a glimpse of the 
vineyards, tucked into man-made terraces along 
the upper cliffs, like bundled herbs on the pantry 
shelves of a thrifty housewife; and still higher 
up there would be orange groves and lemon 
groves and dusty-gray olive groves. Each 
succeeding picture was Byzantine in its coloring. 
Always the sea was molten blue enamel, and 
the far-away villages seemed crafty inlays of 
mosaic work; and the sun was a disk of ham- 
mered Grecian gold. 

A man from San Francisco was sharing the 
car with us, and he came right out and said that 
if he were sure heaven would be as beautiful as 
the Bay of Naples, he would change all his plans 
and arrange to go there. He said he might de- 
cide to go there anyhow, because heaven was 
a place he had always heard very highly spoken 
of. And I agreed with him. 

The sun was slipping down the western sky 
and was laced with red like a bloodshot eye, 
with a Jacob's Ladder of rainbow shafts stream- 
ing down from it to the water, when we turned 
inland; and after several small minor stops, 
while the automobile caught its breath and had 
the heaves and the asthma, we came to Pompeii 
over a road built of volcanic rock. I have al- 
[409] 



EUROPE REVISED 



ways been glad that we went there on a day 
when visitors were few. The very soHtude of 
the place aided the mind in the task of repeo- 
pling the empty streets of that dead city by the 
sea with the life that was hers nearly two thou- 
sand years ago. Herculaneum will always be 
buried, so the scientists say, for Herculaneum 
was snuggled close up under Vesuvius, and the 
hissing-hot lava came down in waves; and first 
it slugged the doomed town to death and then 
slagged it over with impenetrable, flint-hard de- 
posits. Pompeii, though, lay farther away, and 
was entombed in dust and ashes only; so that 
it has been comparatively easy to unearth it 
and make it whole again. Even so, after one 
hundred and sixty-odd years of more or less 
desultory explorations, nearly a third of its 
supposed area is yet to be excavated. 

It was in the year 1592 that an architect 
named Fontana, in cutting an aqueduct which 
was to convey the waters of the Sarno to Torre 
deir Annunziata, discovered the foundations of 
the Temple of Isis, which stood near the walls 
on the inner or land side of the ancient city. It 
was at first supposed that he had dug into an 
isolated villa of some rich Roman; and it was 
not until 1748 that prying archaeologists hit on 
the truth and induced the Government to send 
a chain gang of convicts to dig away the ac- 
cumulations of earth and tufa. But if it had 
been a modern Italian city that was buried, no 
such mistake in preliminary diagnosis could 
[410 1 



STILL ^ORE RUINS 



have occurred. Anybody would have known it 
instantly by the smell. I do not vouch for the 
dates— I copied them out of the guidebook; but 
my experience with Italian cities qualifies me 
to speak with authority regarding the other 
matter. 

Afoot we entered Pompeii by the restored 
Marine Gate. Our first step within the walls 
was at the Museum, a comparatively modern 
building, but containing a fairly complete as- 
sortment of the relics that from time to time 
have been disinterred in various quarters of the 
city. Here are wall cabinets filled with tools, 
ornaments, utensils, jewelry, furniture — all the 
small things that fulfilled everyday functions in 
the first century of the Christian era. Here is 
a kit of surgical implements, and some of the 
implements might well belong to a modern hos- 
pital. There are foodstuffs — grains and fruits; 
wines and oil; loaves of bread baked in 79 a. d. 
and left in the abandoned ovens; and a cheese 
that is still in a fair state of preservation. It 
had been buried seventeen hundred years when 
they found it; and if only it had been permitted 
to remain buried a few years longer it would 
have been sufficiently ripe to satisfy a Bavarian, 
I think. 

Grimmer exhibits are displayed in cases 
stretched along the center of the main hall — 
models of dead bodies discovered in the ruins 
and perfectly restored by pouring a bronze 
composition into the molds that were left in 
[411 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



the hardened pumice after the flesh of these 
victims had turned to dust and their bones had 
crumbled to powder. Huddled together are the 
forms of a mother and a babe; and you see how, 
with her last conscious thought, the mother 
tried to cover her baby's face from the killing 
rain of dust and blistering ashes. And there is 
the shape of a man who wrapped his face in a 
veil to keep out the fumes, and died so. The 
veil is there, reproduced with a fidelity no sculp- 
tor could duplicate, and through its folds you 
may behold the agony that made his jaw to sag 
and his eyes to pop from their sockets. 

Nearby is a dog, which in its last spasms of 
pain and fright curled up worm fashion, and 
buried its nose in its forepaws and kicked out 
with its crooked hind legs. Plainly dogs do not 
change their emotional natures with the passage 
of years. A dog died in Pompeii in 79 a. d. 
after exactly the same fashion that a dog might 
die to-day in the pound at Pittsburgh. 

From here we went on into the city proper; 
and it was a whole city, set off by itself and not 
surrounded by those jarring modern incongru- 
ities that spoil the ruins of Rome for the person 
who wishes to give his fancy a slack rein. It is 
all here, looking much as it must have looked 
when Nero and Caligula reigned, and much as 
it will still look hundreds of years hence, for the 
Government owns it now and guards it and 
protects it from the hammer of the vandal and 
the greed of the casual collector. Here it is — all 
[412 1 




/n^^ra^^'* 



GUIDES IN ROME FOLLOW A REGULAR ROUTINE WITH THE TOURIST 



STILL MORE RUINS 



of it; the tragic theater and the comic theater; 
the basiHca; the greater forum and the lesser 
one; the market place; the amphitheater for the 
games; the training school for the gladiators; 
the temples; the baths; the villas of the rich; the 
huts of the poor; the cubicles of the slaves; 
shops; offices; workrooms; brothels. 

The roofs are gone, except in a few instances 
where they have been restored; but the walls 
stand and many of the detached pillars stand 
too; and the pavements have endured well, so 
that the streets remain almost exactly as they 
were when this was a city of live beings instead 
of a tomb of dead memories, with deep groovings 
of chariot wheels in the flaggings, and at each 
crossing there are stepping stones, dotting the 
roadbed like punctuation marks. At the public 
fountain the well curbs are worn away where 
the women rested their water jugs while they 
swapped the gossip of the town; and at nearly 
every corner is a groggery, which in its appoint- 
ments and fixtures is so amazingly like unto a 
family liquor store as we know it that, venturing 
into one, I caught myself looking about for the 
Business Men's Lunch, with a collection of 
greasy forks in a glass receptacle, a crock of 
pretzels on the counter, and a sign over the bar 
reading: No Checks Cashed — This Means You! 

In the floors the mosaics are as fresh as 
though newly applied; and the ribald and libel- 
ous Latin, which disappointed litigants carved 
on the stones at the back of the law court, looks 
[415] 



EUROPE REVISED 



as though it might have been scored there last 
week — certainly not further back than the week 
before that. A great many of the wall paintings 
in the interiors of rich men's homes have been 
preserved and some of them are fairly spicy as 
to subject and text. It would seem that in 
these matters the ancient Pompeiians were 
pretty nearly as broad-minded and liberal as the 
modern Parisians are. The mural decorations 
I saw in certain villas were almost suggestive 
enough to be acceptable matter for publication 
in a French comic paper; almost, but not quite. 
Mr. Anthony Comctock would be an unhappy 
man were he turned loose in Pompeii — unhappy 
for a spell, but after that exceedingly busy. 

We lingered on, looking and marveling, and 
betweenwhiles wondering whether our automo- 
bile's hacking cough had got any better by resting, 
until the sun went down and the twilight came. 
Following the guidebook's advice we had seen 
the Colosseum in Rome by moonlight. There 
was a full moon on the night we went there. It 
came heaving up grandly, a great, round-faced, 
full-cream, curdy moon, rich with rennet and 
yellow with butter fats; but by the time we had 
worked our way south to Naples a greedy fort- 
night had bitten it quite away, until it was re- 
duced to a mere cheese rind of a moon, set up 
on end against the delft-blue platter of a perfect 
sky. We waited until it showed its thin rim in 
the heavens, and then, in the softened half -glow, 
with the purplish shadows deepening between 
[416] 



STILL MORE RUINS 



the brown-gray walls of the dead city, I just 
naturally turned my imagination loose and let 
her soar. 

Standing there, with the stage set and the 
light effects just right, in fancy I repopulated 
Pompeii. I beheld it just as it was on a fair, 
autumnal morning in 79 a. d. With my eyes 
half closed, I can see the vision now. At first 
the crowds are massed and mingled in con- 
fusion, but soon figures detach themselves from 
the rest and reveal themselves as prominent per- 
sonages. Some of them I know at a glance. 
Yon tall, imposing man, with the genuine imita- 
tion sealskin collar on his toga, who strides along 
so majestically, whisking his cane against his 
leg, can be no other than Gum Tragacanth, 
leading man of the Bon Ton Stock Company, 
fresh from his metropolitan triumphs in Rome 
and at this moment the reigning matinee idol 
of the South. This week he is playing Claude 
Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons; next week he 
will be seen in his celebrated characterization of 
Matthias in The Bells, with special scenery; and 
for the regular Wednesday and Saturday bar- 
gain matinees Lady Audley's Secret will be 
given. 

Observe him closely. It is evident that he 
values his art. Yet about him there is no false 
ostentation. With what gracious condescension 
does he acknowledge the half-timid, half-daring 
smiles of all the little caramel-chewing Floras 
and Faunas who have made it a point to be on 
[417 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



Main Street at this hour! With what careless 
grace does he doff his laurel wreath, which is 
of the latest and most modish fall block, with 
the bow at the back, in response to the waved 
greeting of Mrs. Belladonna Capsicum, the 
acknowledged leader of the artistic and Bohe- 
mian set, as she sweeps by in her chariot bound 
for Blumberg Brothers' to do a little shopping. 
She is not going to buy anything — she is merely 
out shopping. 

Than this fair patrician dame, none is more 
prominent in the gay life of Pompeii. It was 
she who last season smoked a cigarette in public, 
and there is a report now that she is seriously 
considering wearing an ankle bracelet; withal 
she is a perfect lady and belongs to one of the 
old Southern families. Her husband has been 
through the bankruptcy courts twice and is 
thinking of going through again. At present he 
is engaged in promoting and writing a little life 
insurance on the side. 

Now her equipage is lost in the throng and 
the great actor continues on his way, making a 
mental note of the fact that he has promised to 
attend her next Sunday afternoon studio tea. 
Near his own stage door he bumps into Com- 
modious Rotunda, the stout comedian of the 
comic theater, and they pause to swap the latest 
Lambs' Club repartee. This done, Commodius 
hauls out a press clipping and would read it, 
but the other remembers providentially that he 
has a rehearshal on and hurriedly departs. If 
[418 1 



STILL MORE RUINS 



there are any press clippings to be read he has 
a few of his own that will bear inspection. 

Superior Maxillary, managing editor of the 
Pompeiian Daily Neivs-Courier, is also abroad, 
collecting items of interest and subscriptions for 
his paper, with preference given to the latter. 
He enters the Last Chance Saloon down at the 
foot of the street and in a minute or two is out 
again, wiping his mustache on the back of his 
hand. We may safely opine that he has been 
taking a small ad. out in trade. 

At the door of the county courthouse, where 
he may intercept the taxpayers as they come and 
go, is stationed our old friend. Colonel Pro Bono 
Publico. The Colonel has been running for 
something or other ever since Heck was a pup. 
To-day he is wearing his official campaign smile, 
for he is a candidate for county judge, subject 
to the action of the Republican party at the 
October primaries. He is wearing all his lodge 
buttons and likewise his G. A. R. pin, for this 
year he figures on carrying the old-soldier 
vote. 

See who comes now! It is Rigor Mortis, the 
worthy coroner. At sight of him the Colonel 
uplifts his voice in hoarsely jovial salutation: 

"Rigsy, my boy," he booms, "how are you.'^ 
And how is Mrs. M. this morning?" 

"Well, Colonel," answers his friend, "my 
wife ain't no better. She's mighty puny and 
complaining. Sometimes I get to wishing the 
old lady would get well— or something!" 
[419] 



EUROPE REVISED 



The Colonel laughs, but not loudly. That 
wheeze was old in 79. 

In front of the drug-store on the corner a 
score of young bloods, dressed in snappy togas 
for Varsity men, are skylarking. They are es- 
pecially brilliant in their flashing interchanges 
of wit and humor, because the Mastodon Min- 
strels were here only last week, with a new line 
of first-part jokes. Along the opposite side of 
the street passes Nux Vomica, M.D., with a small 
black case in his hand, gravely intent on his 
professional duties. Being a young physician, 
he wears a beard and large-rimmed eyeglasses. 
Young Ossius Dome sees him and hails him. 

"Oh, Doc!" he calls out. "Come over here 
a minute. I've got some brand-new limerickii 
for you. Tertiary Tonsillitis got 'em from a 
traveling man he met day before yesterday 
when he was up in the city laying in his stock 
of fall and winter armor." 

The healer of ills crosses over; and as the 
group push themselves in toward a common cen- 
ter I hear the voice of the speaker: 

"Say, they're all bully; but this is the bullis- 
simus one of the lot. It goes like this: 

"T/iere was a young maid of Sorrento, 
Who said to her ' " 

I have regretted ever since that at this junc- 
ture I came to and so failed to get the rest of it. 
I'll bet that was a peach of a limerick. It 
started off so promisingly, 
r 420 1 



CHAPTER XXIII 
MUCKRAKING IN OLD POMPEII 



IT now devolves on me as a painful yet 
necessary duty to topple from its pedestal 
one of the most popular idols of legendary 
lore. I refer, I regret to say, to the widely 
famous Roman sentry of old Pompeii. 

Personally I think there has been entirely too 
much of this sort of thing going on lately. Muck- 
rakers, prying into the storied past, have de- 
stroyed one after another many of the pet 
characters in history. Thanks to their meddle- 
some activities we know that Paul Revere did 
not take any midnight ride. On the night in 
question he was laid up in bed with inflam- 
matory rheumatism. What happened was that 
he told the news to Mrs. Revere as a secret, and 
she in strict confidence imparted it to the lady 
living next door; and from that point on the 
word traveled with the rapidity of wildfire. 

Horatius never held the bridge; he just let the 
blamed thing go. The boy did not stand on the 
burning deck, whence all but him had fled; he 
[ 421 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



was among the first in the hfeboats. That other 
boy — the Spartan youth — did not have his vitals 
gnawed by a fox; the Spartan youth had been 
eating wild grapes and washing them down 
with spring water. Hence that gnawing sen- 
sation of which so much mention has been 
made. Nobody hit Billy Patterson. He ac- 
quired his birack eye in the same way in which 
all married men acquire a black eye — by run- 
ning against a doorjamb while trying to find 
the ice-water pitcher in the dark. He said so 
himself the next day. 

Even Barbara Frietchie is an exploded myth. 
She did not nail her country's flag to the window 
casement. Being a female, she could not nail a 
flag or anything else to a window. In the first 
place, she would have used a wad of chewing 
gum and a couple of hairpins. In the second 
place, had she recklessly undertaken to nail up 
a flag with hammer and nails, she would never 
have been on hand at the psychological moment 
to invite Stonewall Jackson to shoot her old 
gray head. When General Jackson passed the 
house she would have been in the bathroom 
bathing her left thumb in witch-hazel. 

Furthermore, she did not have any old gray 
head. At the time of the Confederate invasion 
of Maryland she was only seventeen years old 
— some authorities say only seven — and a pro- 
nounced blonde. Also, she did not live in 
Frederick; and even if she did live there, on the 
occasion when the troops went through she was 
[422 1 




SHE IS NOT GOING TO BUT ANYTHING — SHE IS MEREIY OUT SHOPPING 



MUCKRAKING IN OLD POMPEII 

in Baltimore visiting a school friend. Finally, 
Frederick does not stand where it stood in the 
sixties. The cyclone of 1884 moved it three 
miles back into the country and twisted the 
streets round in such a manner as to confuse 
even lifelong residents. These facts have re- 
peatedly been proved by volunteer investigators 
and are not to be gainsaid. 

I repeat that there has been too much of this. 
If the craze for smashing all our romantic fix- 
tures persists, after a while we shall have no 
glorious traditions left with which to fire the 
youthful heart at high-school commencements. 
But in the interests of truth, and also because I 
made the discovery myself, I feel it to be my 
solemn duty to expose the Roman sentry, sta- 
tioned at the gate of Pompeii looking toward 
the sea, who died because he would not quit his 
post without orders and had no orders to quit. 

Until now this party has stood the acid test 
of centuries. Everybody who ever wrote about 
the fall of Pompeii, from Plutarch and Pliny the 
Younger clear down to Bulwer Lytton and Bur- 
ton Holmes, had something to say about him. 
The lines on this subject by the Greek poet 
Laryngitis are familiar to all lovers of that great 
master of classic verse, and I shall not undertake 
to quote from them here. 

Suffice it to say that the Roman sentry, per- 
ishing at his post, has ever been a favorite 
subject for historic and romantic writers. I 
myself often read of him — how on that dread 
[ 425 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



day when the devil's stew came to a boil and 
spewed over the sides of Vesuvius, and death 
and destruction poured down to bhght the land, 
he, typifying fortitude and discipline and un- 
faltering devotion, stood firm and stayed fast 
while all about him chaos reigned and fathers 
forgot their children and husbands forgot their 
wives, and vice versa, though probably not to 
the same extent; and how finally the drifting 
ashes and the choking dust fell thicker upon 
him and mounted higher about him, until he 
died and in time turned to ashes himself, leaving 
only a void in the solidified slag. I had always 
admired that soldier — not his judgment, which 
was faulty, but his heroism, which was immense. 
To myself I used to say: 

"That unknown common soldier, nameless 
though he was, deserves to live forever in the 
memory of mankind. He lacked imagination, 
it is true, but he was game. It was a glorious 
death to die — painful, yet splendid. Those four 
poor wretches whose shells were found in the 
prison under the gladiators' school, with their 
ankles fast in the iron stocks — I know why they 
stayed. Their feet were too large for their own 
good. But no bonds except his dauntless will 
bound him at the portals of the doomed city. 
Duty was the only chain that held him. 

"And to think that centuries and centuries 

afterward they should find his monument — a 

vacant, empty mold in the piled-up pumice! 

Had I been in his place I should have created 

[426] 



MUCKRAKING IN OLD POMPEII 



my vacancy much sooner — say, about thirty 
seconds after the first alarm went in. But he 
was one who chose rather that men should say, 
*How natural he looks!' than 'Yonder he goes!' 
And he has my sincere admiration. When I go 
to Pompeii — if ever I do go there— I shall seek 
out the spot where he made the supremest sac- 
rifice to authority that ever any man could 
make, and I shall tarry a while in those hallowed 
precincts!" 

That was what I said I would do and that was 
what I did do that afternoon at Pompeii. I 
found the gate looking toward the sea and I 
found all the other gates, or the sites of them; 
but I did not find the Roman sentry nor any 
trace of him, nor any authentic record of him. 
I questioned the guides and, through an inter- 
preter, the curator of the Museum, and from 
them I learned the lamentably disillusioning 
facts in this case. There is no trace of him be- 
cause he neglected to leave any trace. 

Doubtless there was a sentry on guard at the 
gate when the volcano belched forth, and the 
skin of the earth flinched and shivered and split 
asunder; but he did not remain for the finish. 
He said to himself that this was no place for a 
minister's son; and so he girded up his loins 
and he went away from there. 

He went away hurriedly — even as you and I. 



[427 



CHAPTER XXIV 
MINE OWN PEOPLE 



WHEREVER we went I was constantly 
on the outlook for a kind of tourist 
who had been described to me fre- 
quently and at great length by more 
seasoned travelers — the kind who wore his 
country's flag as a buttonhole emblem, or as a 
shirtfront decoration; and regarded every gath- 
ering and every halting place as providing 
suitable opportunity to state for the benefit 
of all who might be concerned, how immensely 
and overpoweringly superior in all particulars 
was the land from which he hailed as compared 
with all other lands under the sun. I desired 
most earnestly to overhaul a typical example of 
this species, my intention then being to decoy 
him off to some quiet and secluded spot and 
there destroy him in the hope of cutting down 
the breed. 

At length, along toward the fag end of our 
zigzagging course, I caught up with him; but 
stayed my hand and slew not. For some coun- 
[ 428 ] 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



tries, you understand, are so finicky in the matter 
of protecting their citizens that they would pro- 
tect even such a one as this. I was fearful lest, 
by exterminating the object of my homicidal 
desires, I should bring on international compli- 
cations with a friendly Power, no matter how- 
ever public-spirited and high-minded my inten- 
tions might be. 

It was in Vienna, in a cafe, and the hour was 
late. We were just leaving, after having listened 
for some hours to a Hungarian band playing 
waltz tunes and an assemblage of natives drink- 
ing beer, when the sounds of a dispute at the 
booth where wraps were checked turned our 
faces in that direction. In a thick and plushy 
voice a short square person of a highly vulgar 
aspect was arguing with the young woman who 
had charge of the check room. Judging by his 
tones, you would have said that the nap of his 
tongue was at least a quarter of an inch long; 
and he punctuated his remarks with hiccoughs. 
It seemed that his excitement had to do with 
the disappearance of a neck-muffler. From 
argument he progressed rapidly to threats and 
the pounding of a fist upon the counter. 

Drawing nigh, I observed that he wore a very 
high hat and a very short sack coat; that his 
waistcoat was of a combustible plaid pattern 
with gaiters to match; that he had taken his 
fingers many times to the jeweler, but not once 
to the manicure; that he was beautifully jingled 
and alcoholically boastful of his native land and 
[429] 



EUROPE REVISED 



that — a crowning touch — ^he wore flaring from 
an upper pocket of his coat a silk handkerchief 
woven in the design and colors of his country's 
flag. But, praises be, it was not our flag that 
he wore thus. It was the Union Jack. As we 
passed out into the damp Viennese midnight he 
was loudly proclaiming that he "Was'h Bri'sh 
subjesch," and that unless something was done 
mighty quick, would complain to " 'Is Majeshy's 
rep(hic)shenativ' ver' firsch thing 'n morn'." 

So though I was sorry he was a cousin, I was 
selfishly and unfeignedly glad that he was not 
a brother. Since in the mysterious and un- 
fathomable scheme of creation it seemed neces- 
sary that he should be born somewhere, still he 
had not been born in America, and that thought 
was very pleasing to me. 

There was another variety of the tourist 
breed whose trail I most earnestly desired to 
cross. I refer to the creature who must be 
closely watched to prevent him, or her, from 
carrying off valuable relics as souvenirs, and 
defacing monuments and statues and disfigur- 
ing holy places with an inconsequential signa- 
ture. In the flesh — and such a person must be 
all flesh and no soul — I never caught up with 
him, but more than once I came upon his fresh 
spoor. 

In Venice our guide took us to see the nether 

prisons of the Palace of the Doges. From the 

level of the Bridge of Sighs we tramped down 

flights of stone stairs, one flight after another, 

[430] 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



until we had passed the hole through which the 
bodies of state prisoners, secretly killed at night, 
were shoved out into waiting gondolas and had 
passed also the room where pincers and thumb- 
screw once did their hideous work, until we 
came to a cellar of innermost, deepermost cells, 
fashioned out of the solid rock and stretching 
along a corridor that was almost as dark as the 
cells themselves. Here, so we were told, count- 
less wretched beings, awaiting the tardy pleasure 
of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in 
damp and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing 
day from night only by the fact that once in 
twenty-four hours food would be slipped through 
a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here 
until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of 
madness came upon them before the overworked 
executioner found time to rack their Hmbs or 
lop off their heads. 

We were told that two of these cells had been 
preserved exactly as they were in the days of 
the Doges, with no alteration except that lights 
had been swung from the ceilings. We could 
well accept this statement as the truth, for when 
the guide led us through a low doorway and 
flashed on an electric bulb we saw that the place 
where we stood was round like a jug and bare 
as an empty jug, with smooth stone walls and 
rough stone floor; and that it contained for 
furniture just two things — a stone bench upon 
which the captive might lie or sit and, let into 
the wall, a great iron ring, to which his chains 
[4311 



EUROPE REVISED 



were made fast so that he moved always to their 
grating accompaniment and the guard Hstening 
outside might know by the telltale clanking 
whether the entombed man still lived. 

There was one other decoration in this hole 
— a thing more incongruous even than the modern 
lighting fixtures; and this stood out in bold black 
lettering upon the low-sloped ceiling. A pair of 
vandals, a man and wife — no doubt with infinite 
pains — had smuggled in brush and marking pot 
and somehow or other — I suspect by bribing 
guides and guards — had found the coveted op- 
portunity of inscribing their names here in the 
Doges' black dungeon. With their names they 
had written their address too, which was a small 
town in the Northwest, and after it the legend : 
"Send us a postal card." 

I imagine that then this couple, having ac- 
complished this feat, regarded their trip to 
Europe as being rounded out and complete, and 
went home again, satisfied and rejoicing. Send 
them a postal card? Somebody should send 
them a deep-dish poison-pie! 

Looking on this desecration my companion 
and I grew vocal. We agreed that our national 
lawgivers who were even then framing an im- 
migration law with a view to keeping certain 
people out of this country, might better be en- 
gaged in framing one with a view to keeping 
certain people in. Our guide barkened with a 
quiet little smile on his face to what we said. 

"It cannot have been here long — that writing 
[ 432 1 




I DID A GOOD DEAL OP RECLINING, COMING BACC 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



on the ceiling," he explained for our benefit. 
*' Presently it will be scraped away. But" — 
and he shrugged his eloquent Italian shoulders 
and outspread his hands fan-fashion — "but what 
is the use? Others like them will come and do 
as they have done. See here and here and here, 
if you please!" 

He aimed a darting forefinger this way and 
that, and looking where he pointed we saw now 
how the walls were scarred with the scribbled 
names of many visitors. I regret exceedingly 
to have to report that a majority of these names 
had an American sound to them. Indeed, many 
of the signatures were coupled with the names of 
towns and states of the Union. There were quite 
a few from Canada, too. What, I ask you, is 
the wisdom of taking steps to discourage the cut- 
worm and abate the gypsy -moth when our gov- 
ernment permits these two-legged varmints to 
go abroad freely and pollute shrines and wonder- 
places with their scratchings, and give the 
nations over there a perverted notion of what 
the real human beings on this continent are like.'^ 

For the tourist who has wearied of picture 
galleries and battlegrounds and ruins and ab- 
beys, studying other tourists provides a pleasant 
way of passing many an otherwise tedious hour. 
Certain of the European countries furnish some 
interesting types — notably Britain, which pro- 
ducing a male biped of a lachrymose and cheer- 
less exterior, who plods solemnly across the Con- 
tinent wrapped in the plaid mantle of his own 
[435 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



dignity, never speaking an unnecessary word to 
any person whatsoever. And Germany: From 
Germany comes a stolid gentleman, who, usually, 
is shaped like a pickle mounted on legs and is so 
extensively and convexedly eyeglassed as to 
give him the appearance of something that is 
about to be served sous cloche. Caparisoned in 
strange garments, he stalks through France or 
Italy with an umbrella under his arm, his nose 
being buried so deeply in his guidebook that he 
has no time to waste upon the scenery or the 
people; while some ten paces in the rear, his 
wife staggers along in his wake with her skirts 
dragging in the dust and her arms pulled half 
out of their sockets by the weight of the heavy 
bundles and bags she is bearing. This person, 
when traveling, always takes his wife and much 
baggage with him. Or, rather, he takes his wife 
and she takes the baggage which, by Continental 
standards, is regarded as an equal division of 
burdens. 

However, for variety and individual pecul- 
iarity, our own land offers the largest assortment 
in the tourist line, this perhaps being due to the 
fact that Americans do more traveling than any 
other race. I think that in our ramblings we 
must have encountered pretty nearly all the 
known species of tourists, ranging from sane and 
sensible persons who had come to Europe to 
see and to learn and to study, clear on down 
through various ramifications to those who had 
left their homes and firesides to be uncomfortable 
[ 436 ] 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



and unhappy in far lands merely because some- 
body told them they ought to travel abroad. 
They were in Europe for the reason that so many 
people run to a fire: not because they care partic- 
ularly for a fire but because so many others are 
running to it. I would that I had the time, and 
you, kind reader, the patience so that I might 
enumerate and describe in full detail all the 
varieties and sub-varieties of our race that we 
saw — the pert, overfed, overpampered children, 
the aggressive, self-sufficient, prematurely bored 
young girls, the money-fattened, boastful vul- 
garians, scattering coin by the handful, intent 
only on making a show and not realizing that 
they themselves were the show; the coltish, 
pimply youths who thought in order to be high- 
spirited they must also be impolite and noisy. 
Youth will be served, but why, I ask you — why 
must it so often be served raw.? For contrasts 
to such as these, we met plenty of people worth 
meeting and worth knowing — fine, attractive, 
well-bred American men and women, having a 
decent regard for themselves and for other folks, 
too. Indeed this sort largely predominated. 
But there isn't space for making a classified list. 
The one-volume chronicler must content him- 
self with picking out a few particularly striking 
types. 

I remember, with vivid distinctness, two in- 
dividuals, one an elderly gentleman from some- 
where in the Middle West and the other, an old 
lady who plainly hailed from the South. We 
[ 437 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



met the old gentleman in Paris, and the old 
lady some weeks later in Naples. Though the 
weather was moderately warm in Paris that 
week he wore red woolen wristlets down over 
his hands; and he wore also celluloid cuffs, 
which rattled musically, with very large moss 
agate buttons in them; and for ornamentation 
his watch chain bore a flat watch key, a secret 
order badge big enough to serve as a hitching 
weight and a peach-stone carved to look like a 
fruit basket. Everything about him suggested 
health underwear, chewing tobacco and fried 
mush for breakfast. His whiskers were cut after 
a pattern I had not seen in years and years. 
In my mind such whiskers were associated with 
those happy and long distant days of childhood 
when we yelled Supe! at a stagehand and cher- 
ished Old Cap Collier as a model of what — if 
we had luck — we would be when we grew up. 
By rights, he belonged in the second act of a 
rural Indian play, of a generation or two ago; 
but here he was, wandering disconsolately 
through the Louvre. He had come over to 
spend four months, he told us with a heave of 
the breath, and he still had two months of it 
unspent, and he just didn't see how he was 
going to live through it! 

The old lady was in the great National Mu- 
seum at Naples, fluttering about like a distracted 
little brown hen. She was looking for the Far- 
nese Bull. It seemed her niece in Knoxville had 
told her the Farnese Bull was the finest thing 
[438] 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



in the statuary line to be found in all Italy, and 
until she had seen that, she wasn't going to see 
anything else. She had got herself separated 
from the rest of her party and she was wander- 
ing along about alone, seeking information re- 
garding the whereabouts of the Farnese Bull 
from smiling but uncomprehending custodians 
and doorkeepers. These persons she would ad- 
dress at th« top of her voice. Plainly she 
suffered from a delusion, which is very common 
among our people, that if a foreigner does not 
understand you when addressed in an ordinary 
tone, he will surely get your meaning if you 
screech at him. When we had gone some dis- 
tance farther on and were in another gallery, 
we could still catch the calliope-like notes of 
the little old lady, as she besought some one to 
lead her to the Farnese Bull. 

That she came right out and spoke of the 
Farnese Bull as a bull, instead of referring to 
him as a gentleman cow, was evidence of the 
extent to which travel had enlarged her vision, 
for with half an eye anyone could tell that she 
belonged to the period of our social development 
when certain honest and innocent words were 
supposed to be indelicate — that she had been 
reared in a society whose ideal of a perfect lady 
was one who could say limb, without thinking 
leg. I hope she found her bull, but I imagine 
she was disappointed when she did find it. I 
know I was. The sculpturing may be of a very 
high order — the authorities agree that it is — 
[439 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



but I judge the two artists to whom the group 
is attributed carved the bull last and ran out 
of material and so skimped him a bit. The 
unfortunate Dirce, who is about to be bound to 
his horns by the sons of Antiope, the latter 
standing by to see that the boys make a good 
thorough job of it, is larger really than the bull. 
You can picture the lady carrying off the bull 
but not the bull carrying off the lady. 

Numerously encountered are the tourists who 
are doing Europe under a time limit as exact as 
the schedule of a limited train. They go through 
Europe on the dead run, being intent on seeing 
it all and therefore seeing none of it. They 
cover ten countries in a space of time which a 
sane person gives to one; after which they re- 
turn home exhausted, but triumphant. I think 
it must be months before some of them quit 
panting, and certainly their poor, misused feet 
can never again be the feet they were. 

With them adherence to the time card is 
everything. If a look at the calendar shows 
the day to be Monday, they know they are in 
Munich, and as they lope along they get out 
their guidebooks and study the chapters de- 
voted to Munich. But if it be Tuesday, then 
it is Dresden, and they give their attention to 
literature dealing with the attractions of Dres- 
den; seeing Dresden after the fashion of one 
sitting before a runaway moving picture film. 

Then they pack up and depart, galloping, for 
Prague with their tongues hanging out. For 
[440 1 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



Wednesday is Prague and Prague is Wednesday 
— the two words are synonymous and inter- 
changeable. Surely to such as these, the places 
they have visited must mean as much to them, 
afterward, as the labels upon their trunks mean 
to the trunks — just flimsy names pasted on, all 
confused and overlapping, and certain to be 
scraped off in time, leaving nothing but faint 
marks upon an indurated surface. 

There is yet again another type, always of 
the female gender and generally middle-aged and 
very schoolteacherish in aspect, who, in com- 
pany with a group of kindred spirits, is viewing 
Europe under a contract arrangement by which 
a worn and wearied-looking gentleman, a retired 
clergyman usually, acts as escort and mentor 
for a given price. I don't know how much he 
gets a head for this job; but whatever it is, he 
earns it ninety-and-nine times over. This lady 
tourist is much given to missing trains and 
getting lost and having disputes with natives 
and wearing rubber overshoes and asking 
strange questions — but let me illustrate with a 
story I heard. 

The man from Cook's had convoyed his party 
through the Vatican, until he brought them to 
the Apollo Belvidere. As they ranged them- 
selves wearily about the statue, he rattled off 
his regular patter without pause or punctuation : 

"Here we have the far-famed Apollo Belvi- 
dere found about the middle of the fifteenth 
century at Frascati purchased by Pope Julius 
[4411 



EUROPE REVISED 



the Second restored by the great Michelangelo 
taken away by the French in 1797 but returned 
in 1815 made of Carara marble holding in his 
hand a portion of the bow with which he slew 
the Python observe please the beauty of the 
pose the realistic attitude of the limbs the noble 
and exalted expression of the face of Apollo 
Belvidere he being known also as Phoebus the 
god of oracles the god of music and medicine 
the son of Leto and Jupiter " 

Here he ran out of breath and stopped. For 
a moment no one spoke. Then from a flat- 
chested little spinster came this query in tired 
yet interested tones: 

"Was he — was he married .f^" 

He who is intent upon studying the effect of 
foreign climes upon the American temperament 
should by no means overlook the colonies of 
resident Americans in the larger European cities, 
particularly the colonies in such cities as Paris 
and Rome and Florence. In Berlin, the Amer- 
ican colony is largely made up of music students 
and in Vienna of physicians; but in the other 
places many folks of many minds and many 
callings constitute the groups. Some few have 
left their country for their country's good and 
some have expatriated themselves because, as 
they explain in bursts of confidence, living is 
cheaper in France than it is in America. I sup- 
pose it is, too, if one can only become reconciled 
to doing without most of the comforts which 
make life worth while in America or anywhere 
[442] 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



else. Included among this class are many rather 
unhappy old ladies who somehow impress you 
as having been shunted off to foreign parts be- 
cause there were no places for them in the homes 
of their children and their grandchildren. So 
now they are spending their last years among 
strangers, trying with a desperate eagerness to 
be interested in people and things for which 
they really care not a fig, with no home except a 
cheerless pension. 

Also there are certain folk — products, in the 
main, of the Eastern seaboard — who, from hav- 
ing originally lived in America and spent most 
of their time abroad, have now progressed to 
the point where they now live mostly abroad 
and visit America fleetingly once in a blue moon. 
As a rule these persons know a good deal about 
Europe and very little about the country that 
gave them birth. The stock-talk of European 
literature is at their tongue's tip. They speak 
of Ibsen in the tone of one mourning the passing 
of a near, dear, personal friend, and as for Zola 
— ah, how they miss the influence of his com- 
pelling personality! But for the moment they 
cannot recall whether Richard K. Fox ran the 
Police Gazette or wrote the "Trail of the Lone- 
some Pine." 

They are up on the history of the Old World. 
From memory they trace the Bourbon dynasty 
from the first copper-distilled Charles to the last 
sourmashed Louis. But as regards our own 
Revolution, they aren't quite sure whether it 
f 443 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



was started by the Boston Tea Party or Mrs. 
O'Leary's Cow. Languidly they inquire whether 
that quaint Iowa character, Uncle Champ Root, 
is still Speaker of the House .f* And so the present 
Vice-President is named Elihu Underwood.'^ Or 
isn't he? Anyway, American politics is such a 
bore. But they stand ready, at a minute's 
notice, to furnish you with the names, dates and 
details of all the marriages that have taken 
place during the last twenty years in the royal 
house of Denmark. 

Some day we shall learn a lesson from Europe. 
Some fair day we shall begin to exploit our own 
historical associations. We shall make shrines 
of the spots where Washington crossed the ice 
to help end one war and where Eliza did the 
same thing to help start another. We shall 
erect stone markers showing where Charley Ross 
was last seen and Carrie Nation was first sighted. 
We shall pile up tall monuments to Sitting Bull 
and Nonpareil Jack Dempsey and the man who 
invented the spit ball. Perhaps then these 
truant Americans will come back oftener from 
Paris and Florence and abide with us longer. 
Meanwhile though they will continue to stay 
on the other side. And on second thought, pos- 
sibly it is just as well for the rest of us that 
they do. 

In Europe I met two persons, born in America, 

who were openly distressed over that shameful 

circumstance and could not forgive their parents 

for being so thoughtless and inconsiderate. One 

[444] 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



was living in England and the other was living 
in France; and one was a man and the other 
was a woman; and both of them were avowedly 
regretful that they had not been born elsewhere, 
which, I should say, ought to make the senti- 
ment unanimous. I also heard — at second hand 
— of a young woman whose father served this 
country in an ambassadorial capacity at one of 
the principal Continental courts until the ad- 
ministration at Washington had a lucid interval, 
and endeared itself to the hearts of practically 
all Americans residing in that country by throw- 
ing a net over him and yanking him back home; 
this young woman was so fearful lest some one 
might think she cherished any affection for her 
native land that once when a legation secretary 
manifested a desire to learn the score of the 
deciding game of a World's Series between the 
Giants and the Athletics, she spoke up in the 
presence of witnesses and said: 

"Ah, baseball! How can any sane person be 
excited over that American game? Tell me — 
some one please — how is it played?" 

Yet she was born and reared in a town which 
for a great many years has held a membership 
in the National League. Let us pass on to a 
more pleasant topic. 

Let us pass on to those well-meaning but 
temporarily misguided persons who think they 
are going to be satisfied with staying on indefi- 
nitely in Europe. They profess themselves as 
being amply pleased with the present arrange- 
[445] 



EUROPE REVISED 



merit. For, no matter how patriotic one may- 
be, one must concede— mustn't one? — that for 
true culture one must look to Europe? After 
all, America is a bit crude, isn't it, now? Of 
course some time, say in two or three years 
from now, they will run across to the States 
again, but it will be for a short visit only. After 
Europe one can never be entirely happy else- 
where for any considerable period of time. And 
so on and so forth. 

But as you mention in an offhand way that 
Cedar Bluff has a modern fire station now, or 
that Tulsanooga is going to have a Great White 
Way of its own, there are eyes that light up 
with a wistful light. And when you state casu- 
ally, that Polkdale is planning a civic center 
with the new county jail at one end and the 
Carnegie Library at the other, lips begin to 
quiver under a weight of sentimental emotion. 
And a month or so later when you take the ship 
which is to bear you home, you find a large 
delegation of these native sons of Polkdale and 
Tulsanooga on board, too. 

At least we found them on the ship we took. 
We took her at Naples — a big comfortable Ger- 
man ship with a fine German crew and a double 
force of talented German cooks working over- 
time in the galley and pantry — and so came 
back by the Mediterranean route, which is a 
most satisfying route, especially if the sea be 
smooth and the weather good, and the steerage 
passengers picturesque and light-hearted. More- 
[446 1 



MINE OWN PEOPLE 



over the coast of Northern Africa, lying along 
the southern horizon as one nears Gibraltar, is 
one of the few sights of a European trip that 
are not disappointing. For, in fact, it proves 
to be the same color that it is in the geographies 
— pale yellow. It is very unusual to find a 
country making an earnest effort to correspond 
to its own map, and I think Northern Africa 
deserves honorable mention in the dispatches 
on this account. 



447 



CHAPTER XXV 
BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



H 



OMEWARD-BOUND, a chastened 
spirit pervades the traveler. He is 
not quite so much incKned to be gay 
and blithesome as he was going. The 
holiday is over; the sightseeing is done; the 
letter of credit is worn and emaciated. He has 
been broadened by travel but his pocketbook 
has been flattened. He wouldn't take anything 
for this trip, and as he feels at the present mo- 
ment he wouldn't take it again for anything. 

It is a time for casting up and readjusting. 
Likewise it is a good time for going over, in the 
calm, reflective light of second judgment, the 
purchases he has made for personal use and 
gift-making purposes. These things seemed 
highly attractive when he bought them, and 
when displayed against a background of home 
surroundings will, no doubt, be equally impres- 
sive; but just now they appear as rather a sad 
collection of junk. His English box coat doesn't 
fit him any better than any other box would. 
[448] 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



His French waistcoats develop an unexpected 
garishness on being displayed away from their 
native habitat and the writing outfit which he 
picked up in Vienna turns out to be faulty and 
treacherous and inkily tearful. How sharper 
than a serpent's tooth it is to have a fountain 
pen — that weeps! And why, when a fountain 
pen makes up its mind to cry a spell, does it 
crawl clear across a steamer trunk and bury its 
sobbing countenance in the bosom of a dress 
shirt? 

Likewise the first few days at sea provide 
opportunity for sorting out the large and varie- 
gated crop of impressions a fellow has been 
acquiring during all these crowded months. The 
way the homeward-bound one feels now, he 
would swap any Old Master he ever saw for one 
peep at a set of sanitary bath fixtures. Sight 
unseen, he stands ready to trade two cathedrals 
and a royal palace for a union depot. He will 
never forget the thrill that shook his soul as 
he paused beneath the dome of the Pantheon; 
but he feels that, not only his soul but all the 
rest of him, could rally and be mighty cheerful 
in the presence of a dozen deep-sea oysters on 
the half shell — regular honest-to-goodness North 
American oysters, so beautifully long, so grace- 
fully pendulous of shape that the short- waisted 
person who undertakes to swallow one whole 
does so at his own peril. The picture of the 
Coliseum bathed in the Italian moonlight will 
ever abide in his mind; but he would give a good 
[449] 



EUROPE REVISED 



deal for a large double sirloin suffocated Samuel 
J. Tilden style, with fried onions. Beefsteak! 
Ah, what sweet images come thronging at the 
very mention of the word! The sea vanishes 
magically and before his entranced vision he 
sees The One Town, full of regular fellows and 
real people. Somebody is going to have fried 
ham for supper — five thousand miles away he 
sniffs the delectable perfume of that fried ham 
as it seeps through a crack in the kitchen win- 
dow and wafts out into the street — and the 
word passes round that there is going to be a 
social session down at the lodge to-night, fol- 
lowed, mayhap, by a small sociable game of 
quarter-limit upstairs over Corbett's drug-store. 
At this point, our traveler rummages his Elks' 
button out of his trunk and gives it an affec- 
tionate polishing with a silk handkerchief. And 
oh, how he does long for a look at a home news- 
paper — packed with wrecks and police news and 
municipal scandals and items about the per- 
sons one knows, and chatty mention concerning 
Congressmen and gunmen and tango teachers 
and other public characters. 

Thinking it all over here in the quiet and 
privacy of the empty sea, he realizes that his 
evening paper is the thing he has missed most. 
To the American understanding foreign papers 
seem fearfully and wonderfully made. For in- 
stance, German newspapers are much addicted 
to printing their more important news stories 
in cipher form. The German treatment of a 
[450] 



!E IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



suspected crime for which no arrests have yet 
been made, reminds one of the jokes which used 
to appear, a few years ago, in the back part of 
Harper s Magazine, where a good story was 
always being related of Bishop X, residing in 
the town of Y, who, calling one afternoon upon 
Judge Z, said to Master Egbert, the pet of the 
household, age four, and so on. A German news- 
paper will daringly state that Banker , 

president of the Bank of at who is 

suspected of sequestering the funds of that in- 
stitution to his own uses is reported to have de- 
parted by stealth for the city of , taking 

with him the wife of Herr . 

And such is the high personal honor of the 
average Parisian news gatherer that one Paris 
morning paper, which specializes in actual news 
as counterdistinguished from the other Paris 
papers which rely upon political screeds to fill 
their columns, locks its doors and disconnects 
its telephones at 8 o'clock in the evening, so 
that reporters coming in after that hour must 
stay in till press time lest some of them — such 
is the fear — will peddle all the exclusive stories 
off to less enterprising contemporaries. 

English newspapers, though printed in a lan- 
guage resembling American in many rudimen- 
tary respects, seem to our conceptions weird 
propositions, too. It is interesting to find at 
the tail end of an article a footnote by the 
editor stating that he has stopped the presses 
to announce in connection with the foregoing 
[ 451 ] 



EUROPE REVISED 



that nothing has occurred in connection with 
the foregoing which would justify him in stop- 
ping the presses to announce it; or words to that 
effect. The news stories are frequently set forth 
in a puzzling fashion, and the jokes also. That's 
the principal fault with an English newspaper 
joke — it loses so in translation into our own 
tongue. 

Still, when all is said and done, the returning 
tourist, if he be at all fair-minded, is bound to 
confess to himself that, no matter where his 
steps or his round trip ticket have carried him, 
he has seen in every country institutions and 
customs his countrymen might copy to their 
benefit, immediate or ultimate. Having beheld 
these things with his own eyes, he knows that 
from the Germans we might learn some much- 
needed lessons about municipal control and con- 
servation of resources ; and from the French and 
the Austrians about rational observance of days 
of rest and simple enjoyment of simple outdoor 
pleasures and respect for great traditions and 
great memories; and from the Italians, about 
the blessed facility of keeping in a good humor; 
and from the English, about minding one's own 
business and the sane rearing of children and 
obedience to the law and suppression of unneces- 
sary noises. Whenever I think of this last God- 
given attribute of the British race, I shall recall 
a Sunday we spent at Brighton, the favorite 
seaside resort of middle-class London. Brighton 
was fairly bulging with excursionists that day. 
[452 1 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



A good many of them were bucolic visitors from 
up country, but the majority, it was plain to 
see, hailed from the city. No steam carousel 
shrieked, no ballyhoo blared, no steam pianos 
shrieked, no barker barked. Upon the piers, 
stretching out into the surf, bands played 
soothingly softened airs and along the water 
front, sand-artists and so-called minstrel singers 
plied their arts. Some of the visitors fished — 
without catching anything — and some listened 
to the music and some strolled aimlessly or sat 
stolidly upon benches enjoying the sea air. To 
an American, accustomed at such places to din 
and tumult and rushing crowds and dangerous 
devices for taking one's breath and sometimes 
one's life, it was a strange experience, but a 
mighty restful one. 

On the other hand there are some things 
wherein we notably excel— entirely too many 
for me to undertake to enumerate them here; 
still, I think I might be pardoned for enumerat- 
ing a conspicuous few. We could teach Europe 
a lot about creature comforts and open plumb- 
ing and personal cleanliness and good food and 
courtesy to women — not the flashy, cheap 
courtesy which impels a Continental to rise and 
click his heels and bend his person forward from 
the abdomen and bow profoundly when a strange 
woman enters the railway compartment where 
he is seated, while at the same time he leaves 
his wife or sister to wrestle with the heavy lug- 
gage; but the deeper, less showy instinct which 
f 453 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



makes the average American believe that every 
woman is entitled to his protection and con- 
sideration when she really needs it. In the 
crowded street-car he may keep his seat; in the 
crowded lifeboat he gives it up. 

I almost forgot to mention one other detail 
in which, so far as I could judge, we lead the 
whole of the Old World — dentistry. Probably 
you have seen frequent mention in English pub- 
lications about decayed gentlewomen. Well, 
England is full of them. It starts with the 
teeth. 

The leisurely, long, slantwise course across 
the Atlantic gives one time, also, for making the 
acquaintance of one's fellow passengers and for 
wondering why some of them ever went to 
Europe anyway. A source of constant specula- 
tion along these lines was the retired hay-and- 
f eed merchant from Michigan who traveled with 
us. One gathered that he had done little else 
in these latter years of his life except to traipse 
back and forth between the two continents. 
What particularly endeared him to the rest of 
us was his lovely habit of pronouncing all words 
of all languages according to a fonetic system 
of his own. "Yes, sir," you would hear him 
say, addressing a smoking-room audience of less 
experienced travelers, "my idee is that a fellow 
ought to go over on an English ship, if he likes 
the exclusability, and come back on a German 
ship if he likes the sociableness. Take my case. 
The last trip I made I come over on the Lucy 
[454] 




NEARER AND NEARER DRAWS THAT BLESSED DARK-BLUE STRIP 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



Tanner and went back agin on the Grocer K. 
First and enjoyed it both ways immense!" 

Nor would this chronicle be complete without 
a passing reference to the lady from Cincinnati, 
a widow of independent means, who was travel- 
ing with her two daughters and was so often 
mistaken for their sister that she could not re- 
frain from mentioning the remarkable circum- 
stance to you, providing you did not win her 
everlasting regard by mentioning it first. Like- 
wise I feel that I owe the tribute of a line to the 
elderly Britain who was engaged in a constant 
and highly successful demonstration of the fal- 
lacy of the claim set up by medical practitioners, 
to the effect that the human stomach can con- 
tain but one fluid pint at a time. All day long, 
with his monocle goggling glassily from the midst 
of his face, like one lone porthole in a tank 
steamer, he disproved this statement by prac- 
tical methods and promptly at nine every even- 
ing, when his complexion had acquired a rich 
magenta tint, he would be carried below by two 
accommodating stewards and put— no, not put, 
decanted — would be decanted gently into bed. 
If anything had happened to the port-light of 
that ship, we could have stationed him forward 
in the bows with his face looming over the rail 
and been well within the maritime regulations 
—his face had a brilliancy which even the dark- 
ness of the night could not dim; and if the other 
light had gone out of commission, we could have 
impressed the aid of the bilious Armenian lady 
[ 457 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



who was sick every minute and very sick for 
some minutes, for she was always of a glassy 
green color. 

We learned to wait regularly for the ceremony 
of seeing Sir Monocle and his load toted off to 
bed at nine o'clock every night, just as we 
learned to linger in the offing and watch the 
nimble knife-work when the prize invalid of the 
ship's roster had cornered a fresh victim. The 
prize invalid, it is hardly worth while to state, 
was of the opposite sex. So many things ailed 
her — by her own confession — that you wondered 
how they all found room on the premises at the 
same time. Her favorite evening employment 
was to engage another woman in conversation — 
preferably another invalid — and by honeyed 
words and congenial confidences, to lead the un- 
suspecting prey on and on, until she had her 
trapped, and then to turn on her suddenly and 
ridicule the other woman's puny symptoms and 
tell her she didn't even know the rudiments of 
being ill and snap her up sharply when she tried 
to answer back. And then she would deliver a 
final sting and go away without waiting to bury 
her dead. The poison was in the postscript — it 
nearly always is with that type of female. But 
afterward she would justify herself by saying 
people must excuse her manner — she didn't 
mean anything by it; it was just her way, and 
they must remember that she suffered constant- 
ly. Some day when I have time, I shall make 
that lady the topic of a popular song. I have 
[ 458 1 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



already fabricated the refrain: Her heart was 
in the right place, lads, but she had a floating 
kidney ! 

Arrives a day when you develop a growing 
distaste for the company of your kind, or in 
fact, any kind. 'Tis a day when the sea, grown 
frisky, kicks up its nimble heels and tosses its 
frothy mane. A cigar tastes wrong then and 
the mere sight of so many meat pies and so 
many German salads at the entrance to the 
dining salon gives one acute displeasure. By 
these signs you know that you are on the verge 
of being taken down with climate fever, which, 
as I set forth many pages agone, is a malady 
peculiar to the watery deep, and by green trav- 
elers is frequently mistaken for seasickness, which 
indeed it does resemble in certain respects . I may 
say that I had one touch of climate fever going 
over and a succession of touches coming back. 

At such a time, the companionship of others 
palls on one. It is well then to retire to the 
privacy of one's stateroom and recline awhile. 
I did a good deal of reclining, coming back; I 
was not exactly happy while reclining, but I was 
happier than I would have been doing anything 
else. Besides, as I reclined there on my cosy 
bed, a medley of voices would often float in to 
me through the half-opened port and I could 
visualize the owners of those voices as they sat 
ranged in steamer chairs, along the deck. I 
quote : 

"You, Raymund! You get down off that 
[459 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



rail this minute." . . . "My dear, you just 
ought to go to mine! He never hesitates a 
minute about operating, and he has the loveliest 
manners in the operating room. Wait a minute 
— I'll write his address down for you. Yes, he 
is expensive, but very, very thorough." . . . 
"Stew'd, bring me nozher brand' 'n' sozza." 
. . . "Well, now Mr. — excuse me, I didn't 
catch your name? — oh yes, Mr. Blosser; well, 
Mr. Blosser, if that isn't the most curious thing ! 
To think of us meeting away out here in the 
middle of the ocean and both of us knowing 
Maxie Hockstein in Grand Rapids. It only 
goes to show one thing — this certainly is a 
mighty small world." . . . "Raymund, did 
you hear what I said to you!" 

"Do you really think it is becoming.'^ Thank 
you for saying so. That's what my husband 
always says. He says that white hair with a 
youthful face is so attractive, and that's one 
reason why I've never touched it up. Touched- 
up hair is so artificial, don't you think.^*" . . . 
"Wasn't the Bay of Naples just perfectly swell 
— the water, you know, and the land and the 
sky and everything, so beautiful and every- 
thing.?" . . . "You Raymund, come away 
from that lifeboat. Why don't you sit down 
there and behave yourself and have a nice 
time watching for whales.?" . . . "No, 
ma'am, if you're askin' me I must say I didn't 
care so much for that art gallery stuff — jest a 
lot of pictures and statues and junk like that, 
[460 1 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



SO far as I noticed. In fact the whole thing — ■ 
Yurupp itself — was considerable of a disap- 
pointment to me. I didn't run acros't a single 
Knights of Pythias Lodge the whole time and 
I was over there five months straight hand- 
runnin'." . . . *' Really, I think it must be 
hereditary; it runs in our family. I had an 
aunt and her hair was snow-white at twenty-one 
and my grandmother was the same way." . . . 
"Oh yes, the suffering is something terrible. 
You've had it yourself in a mild form and of 
course you know. The last time they operated 
on me, I was on the table an hour and forty 
minutes — mind you, an hour and forty minutes 
by the clock— and for three days and nights 
they didn't know whether I would live another 
minute." 

A crash of glass. 

"Stew'd, I ashidently turn' over m' drink — 
bring me nozher brand' 'n' sozza." . . . "Just 
a minute, Mr. Blosser, I want to tell my 
husband about it — he'll be awful interested. 
Say, listen. Poppa, this gentleman here knows 
Maxie Hockstein out in Grand Rapids." . . . 
"Do you think so, really .^^ A lot of people have 
said that very same thing to me. They come 
up to me and say ' I know you must be a South- 
erner because you have such a true Southern 
accent.' I suppose I must come by it naturally, 
for while I was born in New Jersey, my mother 
was a member of a very old Virginia family and 
we've always been very strong Southern sym- 
[4611 



EUROPE REVISED 



pathizers and I went to a finishing school in 
Baltimore and I was always being mistaken for 
a Southern girl." . . . "Well, I sure had 
enough of it to do me for one spell. I seen the 
whole shootin' match and I don't regret what 
it cost me, but, believe me, little old Keokuk is 
goin' to look purty good to me when I get back 
there. Why, them people don't know no more 
about makin' a cocktail than a rabbit." . . . 
"That's her standing yonder talking to the cap- 
tain. Yes, that's what so many people say, but 
as a matter of fact, she's the youngest one of 
the two. I say, 'These are my daughters,' and 
then people say, 'You mean your sisters.' Still 
I married very young — at seventeen — and pos- 
sibly that helps to explain it." . . . "Oh, is 
that a shark out yonder.^^ Well, anyway, it's a 
porpoise, and a porpoise is a kind of shark, isn't 
it.f' When a porpoise grows up, it gets to be 
a shark — I read that somewhere. Ain't nature 
just wonderful.?" . . . "Raymund Walter 
Pelham, if I have to speak to you again, young 
man, I'm going to take you to the stateroom 
and give you something you won't forget in a 
hurry." . . , "Stew'd, hellup me gellup." 

Thus the lazy hours slip by and the spell of 
the sea takes hold on you and you lose count 
of the time and can barely muster up the energy 
to perform the regular noonday task of putting 
your watch back half an hour. A passenger 
remarks that this is Thursday and you wonder 
dimly what happened to Wednesday. 
[462] 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



Three days more — just three. The realiza- 
tion comes to you with a joyous shock. Some- 
body sights a sea-gull. With eager eyes you 
watch its curving flight. Until this moment 
you have not been particularly interested in 
sea-gulls. Heretofore, being a sea-gull seemed 
to you to have few attractions as a regular 
career, except that it keeps one out in the open 
air; otherwise it has struck you as being rather 
a monotonous life with a sameness as to diet 
which would grow very tiresome in time. But 
now you envy that sea-gull, for he comes direct 
from the shores of the United States of America 
and if so minded may turn around and beat 
you to them by a margin of hours and hours and 
hours. Oh, beauteous creature! Oh, favored 
bird! 

Comes the day before the last day. There is 
a bustle of getting ready for the landing. Cus- 
toms blanks are in steady demand at the purser's 
office. Every other person is seeking help from 
every other person, regarding the job of filling 
out declarations. The women go about with 
the guilty look of plotters in their worried eyes. 
If one of them fails to slip something in without 
paying duty on it she will be disappointed for 
life. All women are natural enemies to all excise 
men. Dirk, the Smuggler, was the father of 
their race. 

Comes the last day. Dead ahead lies a misty, 
thread-like strip of dark blue, snuggling down 
against the horizon, where sea and sky merge. 
[463] 



EUROPE REVISED 



You think it is a cloud bank, until somebody 
tells you the glorious truth. It is the Western 
Hemisphere — your Western Hemisphere, It is 
New England. Dear old New England! Charm- 
ing people — the New Englanders ! Ah, breathes 
there the man with soul so dead who never to 
himself has said, this is my own, my native 
land.f^ Certainly not. A man with a soul so 
dead as that would be taking part in a funeral, 
not in a sea voyage. Upon your lips a word 
hangs poised. What a precious sound it has, 
what new meanings it has acquired! There are 
words in our language which are singular and 
yet sound plural, such as politics and where- 
abouts; there are words which are plural and 
yet sound singular, such as Brigham Young, and 
there are words which convey their exact sig- 
nificance by their very sound. They need no 
word-chandlers, no adjective-smiths to dress 
them up in the fine feathers of fancy phrasing. 
They stand on their own merits. You think of 
one such word — a short, sweet word of but four 
letters. You speak that word reverently, lov- 
ingly, caressingly. 

Nearer and nearer draws that blessed dark 
blue strip. Nantucket light is behind us. Long 
Island shoulders up alongside. Trunks accu- 
mulate in gangways; so do stewards and other 
functionaries. You have been figuring upon the 
tips which you will bestow upon them at part- 
ing; so have they. It will be hours yet before 
we land. Indeed, if the fog thickens, we may 
[464 1 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



not get in before to-morrow, yet people run about 
exchanging good-byes and swapping visiting 
cards and promising one another they will meet 
again. I think it is reckless for people to trifle 
with their luck that way. 

Forv/ard, on the lower deck, the immigrants 
cluster, chattering a magpie chorus in many 
tongues. The four-and-twenty blackbirds which 
were baked in a pie without impairment to the 
vocal cords have nothing on them. Most of 
the women were crying when they came aboard 
at Naples or Palermo or Gibraltar. Now they 
are all smiling. Their dunnage is piled in heaps 
and sailors, busy with ropes and chains and 
things, stumble over it and swear big round 
German oaths. 

Why, gracious! We are actually off Sandy 
Hook. Dear old Sandy — how one loves those 
homely Scotch names! The Narrows are nigh 
and Brooklyn, the City Beautiful, awaits us 
around the second turning to the left. The 
pilot boat approaches. Brave little craft! Gal- 
lant pilot! Do you suppose by any chance he 
has brought any daily papers with him.^* He 
has — hurrah for the thoughtful pilot! Did 
you notice how much he looked like the pictures 
of Santa Glaus .^^ 

We move on more slowly and twice again we 
stop briefly. The quarantine officers have clam- 
bered up the sides and are among us; and to 
some of us they give cunning little thermometers 
to hold in our mouths and suck on, and of 
[465 1 



EUROPE REVISED 



others they ask chatty, intimate questions with 
a view to finding out how much insanity there 
is in the family at present and just what per- 
centage of idiocy prevails? Three cheers for the 
jolly old quarantine regulations. Even the ad- 
vance guard of the customhouse is welcomed by 
one and all — or nearly all. 

Between wooded shores which seem to ad- 
vance to meet her in kindly greeting, the good 
ship shoves ahead. For she is a good ship, and 
later we shall miss her, but at this moment we 
feel that we can part from her without a pang. 
She rounds a turn in the channel. What is that 
mass which looms on beyond, where cloud- 
combing ofiice buildings scallop the sky and 
bridges leap in far-flung spans from shore to 
shore .f^ That's her — all right — the high picketed 
gateway of the nation. That's little old New 
York. Few are the art centers there, and few 
the ruins; and perhaps there is not so much 
culture lying round loose as there might be — 
just bustle and hustle, and the rush and crush 
and roar of business and a large percentage of 
men who believe in supporting their own wives 
and one wife at a time. Crass perhaps, crude 
perchance, in many ways, but no matter. All 
her faults are virtues now. Beloved metropolis, 
we salute thee! And also do we turn to salute 
Miss Liberty. 

This series of adventure tales began with the 
Statue of Liberty fading rearward through the 
harbor mists. It draws to a close with the same 
[466] 



BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE 



old lady looming through those same mists and 
drawing ever closer and closer. She certainly 
does look well this afternoon, doesn't she? She 
always does look well, somehow. 

We slip past her and on past the Battery too; 
and are nosing up the North River. What a 
picturesque stream it is, to be sure! And how 
full of delightful rubbish! In twenty minutes 
or less we shall be at the dock. Folks we know 
are there now, waiting to welcome us. 

As close as we can pack ourselves, we gather 
in the gangways. Some one raises a voice in 
song. 'Tis not the Marseillaise hymn that we 
sing, nor Die Wacht am Rhein, nor Ava Maria, 
nor God Save the King; nor yet is it Columbia 
the Gem of the Ocean. In their proper places 
these are all good songs, but we know one more 
suitable to the occasion, and so we all join in. 
Hark ! Happy voices float across the narrowing 
strip of roily water between ship and shore: 

'"Mid pleasures and palaces. 
Though we may roam, 

(Now then, altogether, mates:) 

Be it ever so humble. 
There's no place like 

HOME!" 



[467 1 



,w 



■i w'^^ 



